56 
HoGGj on Parasitic Fungi. 
said to be reproduced in tlie blood of the silkworm when 
it becomes acid; while the mycelia and sporules appear 
on the respiratory surface. Again^ the fungus of the common 
house-fly, named Mycophyton Cohnii, is a mould found in 
the viscera of this insect at the beginning of autumn, when 
its powers of life are at the lowest point, and the natural 
process of decay is commencing, or has proceeded to some 
extent. Indeed, hcBmatophyta infest the fluids and organs of 
several classes of insects, fish, and animals, and in all it would 
appear that certain conditions are necessary as to develop- 
ment, food, temperature, and habitat, for the complete evo- 
lution of these organisms. An acid condition it is found 
accompanies the production and growth of most of these 
organism ; this is the case in the oi'dium of muguet : we also 
find that the whole tribe give out carbonic acid, absorb oxygen, 
and contain a considerable proportion of nitrogen, a fact 
which may in some measure explain the destructive ravages 
often committed by the moulds. Their rapidity of develop- 
ment and growth is seen constantly in the yeast- plant and 
red-snow (or gory- dew). 
In conclusion, I have only to observe with regard to the 
universal distribution of the fungi throughout each depart- 
ment of nature, it appears to me that fungi even have a 
purpose to fulfil in the economy of life; and so far from 
being parasitic pests, as some deem them, these, the lowest 
and earliest forms of life in the vegetable kingdom, have 
been from the beginning designedly intended to be, what 
they certainly are, useful scavengers in creation; and thus are 
they inevitably growing amid disease and death, for no other 
purpose than that of removing all festering matters from the 
presence of the living, which, if allowed longer to remain, 
must prove alike destructive of health and life. 
Here also is presented for our admiration a striking and 
curious example of the ever-varying phases of life, and its 
resurrection from the ashes of decay and death. Nothing is 
sufiered to remain idle, useless, or uncared for, in all the won- 
drous changes which are ever around us, for the good of the 
whole, and for the purpose of maintaining this spot of earth in 
a state fit for all the families of God^s creatures. ^'^ All things, 
indeed, work together for their good ;^^ and one fact is con- 
stantly obtruding itself to our gaze — that " life is inseparably 
linked with change, and every arrest is temporary death, and 
only through incessant destruction and reconstruction can 
vital phenomena emerge, an ebb and flow of being.^' 
Since the paper has been in the hands of the printer, a 
most interesting case has fallen under my notice ; that of a 
