HARD WICKE' S S CIENCE- G O SSI P. 



i7 



found them on shady and grassy banks, on heaths in 

 ihei vicinity : they are very abundant in some woods, 

 for;instance in Bury Woods, Epping Forest, they may 



Fig. 10.-— Phallus impudicus before the bursting of the 

 peridium. 



Fig. 11.— Phallus impudicus (SectioD;. 



be found growing in clusters under the hornbeams ; 

 and also in several other woods near London. 



They first appear as an oblong, whitish, transparent 



ball (Fig. 10), which will soon burst ; from out of 

 this gelatinous covering (volva) rises the tubular 

 column, which has a spongy texture of a milk-white 

 colour ; on the apex of this column or stipe is the 

 common receptacle or pileus, at the summit of which 

 is a small white bordered pore, marking the conju- 

 gation with, and opening into the column. At first 

 the sporiferous head is green, without any traces of 

 the laminae, but when ripe the spores escape in a 

 yellowish-brown mucus, leaving the common re- 

 ceptacle and lamina; quite clean. It has a very 

 strong fetid smell, especially when the peridium 

 bursts and the column expands, by this smell it may 

 often be found. 



They are most abundant about July and August, 

 growing in clusters of threes and fours, which are 

 generally from six to eight inches high, and smelling 

 very intense ; however, later in the season (October), 

 the individual specimens are fewer and much larger, 

 often nine and ten inches high, with a very slight 

 smell. I think this must be due to the weather being 

 more favourable to the growth of fungi. 



The following is an account of a very large speci- 

 men which I found in October this year, growing on 

 the borders of a wood at Highgate : — height thirteen 

 inches, pileus three and a half inches long, column 

 two inches in diameter, and volva four inches long 

 and half an inch thick. 



Henry E. Griset. 



SOME FAMOUS COLLECTING-GROUNDS 

 FOR DRAGON-FLIES. 



By the Author of " An Illustrated Handbook of 

 British Dragon-flies," "A Label List of British 

 Dragon-flies," etc., etc. 



I. THE NEW FOREST AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 



THE New Forest, in Hampshire, is probably the 

 "happy hunting-ground " most-frequently pa- 

 tronised by entomologists in the British Islands. From 

 the earliest dawn of entomological history this district 

 has been regarded as the principal store-house ot 

 insect-life in this country, whose boundless expanse it 

 is the desire of every enthusiastic entomologist to 

 explore. It constitutes the headquarters of all the 

 "brethren of the net," and, as in times of yore, it still 

 continues to yield its multitudinous winged treasures 

 to the patient and persevering student. 



Nowhere else in the United Kingdom is such a 

 veritable paradise for dragon-flies to be found as in 

 the New Forest, and everywhere through its vast 

 length and breadth we may hope to meet with these 

 gorgeous gems, provided only that we pay it a visit 

 in the proper season. 



The neighbourhood of Brockenhurst, which is in 

 the very centre of the Forest, and exceedingly 

 convenient to reach from either Southampton or 



