68 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. | [Vor. XXXV. 
Professor Atkinson stating that he has tried to present the important 
characters which it is necessary to observe, in an interesting and 
intelligible way, and to illustrate these by life-size photographic 
reproductions of the larger fungi, the selection of species being made 
with a view to the representation of the more important genera, 
chiefly those containing edible species ; while Captain Mcllvaine, 
regretting the absence of any book giving the genus, names, and 
descriptions of the prominent American toadstools, the edibility of 
which has been tested or the poisonous qualities of which have been 
discovered, has attempted to give such information for every species 
known to be esculent in North America. 
Both books are illustrated by colored plates and process repro- 
ductions from photographs, which, particularly in Captain MclIlvaine's 
book, are supplemented by diagrammatic drawings. The illustration 
of pileate fungi is a subject about which opinions may and appar- 
ently do differ widely. Few colored plates, not even excluding those 
of the olden time, which were hand-tinted on a lithograph or engraving, 
represent the colors any too naturally, and it must be said that the 
illustrations in color in these two books, though often pleasing to the 
eye, do not materially affect the truthfulness of this statement. On 
the other hand, uncolored drawings fail to represent characters 
which, though imperfectly shown in an ordinary colored plate, may 
be sufficiently closely suggested in it to serve their purpose. The 
two books in hand contain a wealth of photographic illustration which 
in excellence is scarcely surpassed-by Mr. Lloyd's well-known photo- 
gravure sheets of certain American fungi, and which may be taken 
as representing nearly or quite the best that can be done by process 
work; and yet, exquisite as some of this work is, and faithful as the 
photographic portrait must of necessity be, it is doubtful whether the 
technical characters which, no less than the gross characters, need 
to be brought out in illustrating the pileate fungi, are as well shown 
in the greater number of cases as they could be by an artist's skill, 
guided by the unimpeachable accuracy of the camera and controlled 
by the fresh dissection. 
Both books are primarily intended for the fungus-eater, and yet 
their scope is very different, and in both cases extends further than 
that of Mr. Gibson's book already referred to. Professor Atkinson, 
while covering the genera pretty fully, devotes a great deal of space 
to comparatively few, but representative, species, poisonous OF 
edible, while Captain McIlvaine, with nearly or quite equal fullness 
of treatment, attempts to account for everything. It is easier to 
