TAYLOR : DOMINANCY IN NATUUK. 
The Black-spored species are the earliest evolved and the most 
primitive group, the spores being of a large size, and endowed with 
a certain amount of hereditary motility favonrable for their dissemi- 
nation by water, and leminiscent of theii- algal ancestry. The bulk 
of these dark, macrosporous species show a weak development or 
absence of alkaline, poisonous or corroding substances in their cell 
contents, and they are, therefore, generally edible. 
The Brown and Purple-spored species blend with the nigrospon.uis 
forms, over which they are dominant : their s])ores are smallei- 
and they also possess more generally the protective or defensive 
secretions of poisonous oi- caustic alkaloids. 
^riie Pink-spored species are a still later evolution, and are also 
more richly endow^ed with defensive noxious secretions. The spures 
have also dwindled in size still further, and the dominancy over the 
dark-spored and earlier evolved species is more effective and striking. 
The White-spored species display the highest development at- 
tained by the Agarics, the spores being increased in number and 
reduced to the most minute size, capable of being borne away and 
disseminated by the lightest wind, while the protection obtained 
by the secretion of obnoxious or injurious substances is still further 
increased, and sometimes to such a degree that certain s])ecies are 
deadly in their effects if used for food. 
This highly organized group is absolutely predominant over every 
other section, the mycelium apparently more readily abstracting all 
suitable nourishment from the ground, or otherwise giving off secre- 
tions wdiich are detrimental to the growth of the more primitive or 
less highly endowed species. 
The pink, the brown, the purple, and the black-spored species are 
in relation to the white-spored species in an increasing degree 
regressive or decadent, and are gradually being driven off by the 
competition of their more dominant competitor further and further 
away from their probable or assumed evolutionary area, and are 
becoming scarcer and scarcer in regions where it may be assumed 
that ages ago they were more plentiful. 
This process of expulsion or extermination is displayed by the 
observed struggles for the occupation of some favourable spot ; the 
white-spored species or their closest allies invariably and quickly 
overcoming those bearing pigmented spores, for it has been actually 
demonstrated that the white-spored Clitocybe or the pink-spored 
Volv((ria invariably destroy the mushroom-beds upon which the 
purple-spored edible mushroom is cultivated on obtaining access 
thereto : while the more primitive black-spored Coprinus, which is 
normally abundant upon the substances of which a mushroom-bed 
is composed, and would have been expected to be its chief enemy, is 
quite unable to establish or maintain itself under such circumstances, 
and justifies the law, that in this, as in all other forms of life, the 
power of monopolizing a given area is more dependent on the relative 
dominancy of competing species, than on physical conditions. 
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