248 FUNGI. 



universal wherever decaying vegetable matter is found, and 

 that under some conditions animal substances, especially of 

 vegetable feeders, such as insects, furnish a pabulum for their 

 development. 



A very curious and interesting inquiry presents itself to oui 

 minds, -which is intimately related to this subject of the habitats 

 of fungi. It shapes itself into a sort of "puzzle for the curious,' - 

 but at the same time one not unprofitable to think about. How 

 is the occurrence of new and before unknown forms to be 

 accounted for in a case like the following?* 



It was our fortune — good fortune as far as this investigation 

 was concerned — to have a portion of wall in our dwelling per- 

 sistently damp for some months. It was close to a cistern 

 which had become leaky. The wall was papered with " marbled " 

 paper, and varnished. At first there was for some time nothing 

 worthy of observation, except a damp wall — decidedly damp, 

 discoloured, but not by any means mouldy. At length, and 

 rather suddenly, patches of mould, sometimes two or three 

 inches in diameter, made their appearance. These were at first 

 of a snowy whiteness, cottony and dense, just like large tufts of 

 cotton wool, of considerable expansion, but of miniature eleva- 

 tion. They projected from the -paper scarcely a quarter of an 

 inch. In the course of a few weeks the colour of the tufts 

 became less pure, tinged with an ochraceous hue, and resembling 

 wool rather than cotton, less beautiful to the naked eye, or under 

 a lens, and more entangled. Soon after this darker patches 

 made their appearance, smaller, dark olive, and mixed with, or 

 close to, the woolly tufts ; and ultimately similar spots of a 

 dendritic character either succeeded the olive patches, or were 

 independently formed. Finally, little black balls, like small 

 pin heads, or grains of gunpowder, were found scattered about 

 the damp spots. All this mouldy forest was more than six 

 months under constant observation, and during that period was 

 held sacred from the disturbing influences of the housemaid's 

 broom and duster. 



Curiosity prompted us from the first to submit the mouldy 

 * " Popular Science Review," vol. x. (1871), p. 25. 



