320 "The American Naturalist. [April, 



consider them particularly good eating, partaking of them both raw 

 and cooked. When I read the above article in your Society's Journal 

 somewhat over a year ago, I was then aware that mushrooms existed 

 in the interior of ant hills, for I had often seen them, but I did not 

 know their season of sprouting, and whenever I searched was unsuc- 

 cessful till the other day. I have now ascertained the season they 

 sprout is the end of August or the beginning of September, and I be- 

 lieve all ant hills produce them. These mushrooms appear to me 

 to proceed from a peculiar substance always found in ant hills in 

 this country (whether white or black), generally called ants' food, a 

 bluish gritty substance, like coarse wheat flour turned mouldy and ad- 

 hesive. In dry weather brittle, and in damp weather like soft leather. 

 It is this substance, under the combined influence of heat, damp and 

 darkness from which the mushrooms grow. As my experience is at 

 variance with the writer in the Gardeners 7 Chronicle, you may care to 

 record it. # * * * t would like these mushroomS) if pos ; ible> re . 

 ferred to some mycologist, and their names ascertained ; and I would 

 like also to know if the bluish substance, the ants' food, was collected 

 and treated artificially, could similar mushrooms be raised." These 

 mushrooms were submitted to Dr. D. D. Cunningham, who reported as 

 follows: "I herewith return the letter sent to me more than a month 

 ago, along with specimens of fungi said to have been procured from 

 the interior of a white ant hill. The specimens apparently belong to 

 some species of Lepiota, and are chiefly remarkable for the extreme 

 length and coarse fibrous contents of the stem. The occurrence of 

 fungi in connection with ant hills is well known, but in so far as I am 

 aware, those hitherto described as occurring on the hills of the white 

 ant belong to species of the Gasteromycetous order Podaxinei, so that 

 the occurrence of a species of one of the sub-genera of Agaricusin such 

 localities is a new and interesting fact. With regard to the material 

 from which they arise, and which must apparently be of the same 

 nature as the so-called spawn of the cultivated mushroom, consisting of 

 vegetable debris permeated by the mycelium of the fungus, it may be 

 noted that a similar substance is described by Belt as occurring in the 

 nests of the leaf-cutting ants in Nicaragua, and is supposed ny him to 

 serve as food— the ants culling and storing the leaves for the sake of 

 the fnngi which are subsequently developed in the debris (Naturalist 

 In Nicaragua, p. 80). Were this spawn artifically exposed to condi- 

 tions similar to those which it naturally encounters in the interior of 

 the hillocks— heat, darkness and moisture— I believe that the pilei 



