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The Museum Gazette 



ON THE STUDY OF FUNGALS. 



With intentional and, we hope, pardonable ostentation, we 

 published in our last month's Gazette a long list of the fungi 

 then exhibited in our Vivarium. It occupied two pages. Our 

 object in doing this was to draw attention to the extent of 

 the opportunities for field study in October, which this group 

 of vegetables, may we say of flowers, affords. To many, 

 the long specific names given in our list would be meaningless, 

 and might be regarded with that feeling of almost repulsion 

 which pedantry and the attempt to exhibit superior know- 

 ledge always naturally excites. To some the list might not 

 improbably suggest a hopeless disinclination to undertake 

 the study of fungi at all. " If it is needful to master and 

 keep in memory all these long and often unpronouncable 

 names, I must leave the whole thing alone." Those who had 

 inspected the collection would, however, have been enabled 

 to rise above both one and the other of the impressions 

 referred to. They would have seen that the Greek or Latin 

 names which at first sight look so formidable denote objects 

 which are very real, often very beautiful, and always of great 

 interest. They would have realised also that no charge of 

 pedantry can be sustained, inasmuch as the collectors of 

 fungi have no choice but to use names coined from the dead 

 languages, since there are in most instances none available 

 in English. It is not needful to speak of a daisy as Bellis 

 pev 'emits , because it is well known and much loved under its 

 Anglo-Saxon designation. In the case, however, of Inocybe 

 echinata, Ulocolla foliacea and a multitude of others, the botanist 

 has no choice. The extent to which, in Fungology, the 

 well-instructed can " regard the weakness of his peers," by 

 avoiding technicality, is much restricted. 



Whilst, however, we are obliged to insist that the student 



