952 Quadrupeds. 



which led to these remarks, was found by Dr. Lankester in the neighbourhood of Ches- 

 hunt, in December, 1844. It was a specimen of the Agaricus personatus, which was 

 in a decaying state, from the effects of a previous frost. It exhibited in all its parts 

 a normal structure, with the exception of the pileus, in the centre of which, imme- 

 diately over the insertion of the stipes into the hymenium, a second and smaller hyme- 

 nium was developed. The gills of this were apparent and presented towards the 

 light, and its edges were covered with a pileus, which gradually united itself with that 

 of the lower hymenium. There was, however, no appearance of any development of a 

 stipes. On making a section of the whole plant, no connexion between the lower and 

 upper hymenium was discoverable, so that the latter was evidently an independent 

 development. Although in too dry a state to exhibit under the microscope much of 

 the peculiarity of structure of this class of bodies, sufficient was seen to prove that, 

 whatever might have been the character of the lower or normal hymenium, the upper 

 one was of precisely the same nature. In accounting for this appearance, Dr. Lan- 

 kester considered that in the Fungi, the pileus and stipes were to be regarded as the 

 representatives of the leaves, or nutritive organs in the higher plants, and the hyme- 

 nium as the analogue of the flower, or reproductive organs, and consequently, that 

 the influence of cold, or of some other external agent, causing an arrest of the deve- 

 lopment in the vegetable tissue of the Fungus, would be attended with the develop- 

 ment of reproductive tissue, such as we know occurs under similar circumstances in 

 the higher forms of plants. That this view of the office of the parts is correct, he 

 considered might be made out by passing from the Fungi to the Lichens, from these 

 to the Hepaticse, musses and ferns, in which the green parts are undoubtedly the nu- 

 tritive tissue of the plant, and the analogues of the leaves. In the Fungi, however, 

 it should appear that the whole body must be looked upon as the analogue of the flower 

 in the higher plants, the thallus being, in this family, at its minimum of development. 

 Hence, then, just as the calyx and corolla stand in the relation of nutritive organs 

 to the more especially reproductive stamens and pistils, so the pileus and stipes stand 

 in a similar relation to the hymenium. He concluded with some observations upon 

 6ome other abnormal forms of Fungi, one of which, figured by Schaeffer, which pre- 

 sents two smaller Fungi growing upon the pileus of a larger one, he considered as 

 produced in the same manner as double seeds, or proliferous flowers. — J. W. 



Observations on the Noctule. The Noctule does not retire for hybernation nearly 

 so early in the autumn as it is generally said to do. I had long observed its late dis- 

 appearance in the south of Buckinghamshire, where it is very abundant; but I have 

 more particularly watched it at Cambridge, and now for two seasons I have seen it 

 throughout the first week in November ; both years my observations were put an end 

 to by cold and stormy weather. This year (1845) I first saw it on the 25th of March, 

 with its usual high and rapid flight ; it might have been about for several days pre- 

 viously, as I had not kept a look out for it, but it could hardly have been about for 

 more than four or five days, as there had been a long continuance of frost and snow 

 to within a week of the 25th. It would be incredible that so accurate and constant 

 an observer as White should have been mistaken on this point, were it not that the 

 species is rare about Selborne ; it may be that towards the autumn it migrates to 



