103 
RAOCARDO “ RYLLOGE FUNGORUM.” 
rest of the work, which has now reached its seventh volume. We 
have, it is true, raised conscientious objections to the basis of 
classification in the early volumes, but, although objecting to the 
system, have accorded our small meed of praise to Prof. Saccardo 
for the manner in which he has surmounted enormous difficulties, 
and collected together the material which has been scattered over 
the civilized world. It is no small merit in such a work that so 
little that is critical has been attempted. Thus far undoubtedly 
Prof. Saccardo has been wise, and his volumes will be all the more 
useful for it, seeing that it was impossible for him to obtain access 
to a vast bulk of the species, or to have examined and compared 
them within the reasonable compass of a lifetime. But, alas, such 
feelings and such prudence were not shared by all of his coadjutors, 
or at least by the author of the Gasteromyceteae (exclusive of the 
Phalloideae). Undoubtedly it was a great mistake to set a novice 
to try his “ ’prentice hand ” at a section of this work without the 
caution, at the same time, that a critical revision would not be 
advisable. What has been the consequence may be presumed from 
the fact that one hundred and three pages of the original text 
required twenty-three pages of corrections and emendations before 
the printing of the volume was completed. Unfortunately, we have 
neither the time nor the space at our disposal to pass in review so 
much of the 103 pages as are not corrected in the 23 pages of 
emendations. Suffice it to say that these corrections chiefly apply 
to two large genera. What would have been the amount of correc- 
tion necessary had some revision of one or two other large genera 
been brought to the author’s notice, it is impossible to guess. Suffice 
it to say that if the author in question had really and practically 
known Scleroderma (perhaps no species has been found in Italy of 
late years) he could never look on Scleroderma again without blush- 
ing. We are not, by any means, raising a fictitious issue, as any- 
one with a moderate knowledge of Gasteromycetes will confess on 
turning to this volume. Let him refer to page 95, a new genus, 
Lanopila , is elaborated for species with a single peridium, but three 
species out of the four are described with a double one. Bovista 
is distinguished from Lycoperdon by not having a sterile base, 
which would offer no ground of complaint if it were adhered to, yet 
on the contrary some species included in Bovista have a sterile base 
and some of those assigned to Lycoperdon possess no trace of a 
sterile base. In Lycoperdon there are two sections, one with 
smooth spores, and the other with echinulate spores, yet, forsooth, 
Lycoperdon echinatum (p. 107), which has echinulate spores (accord- 
ing to his own admission), is placed in the section having 
smooth spores, and more than all, ye immortal gods, it is accom- 
modated as a variety of L. gemmatum . If such eccentricities as 
these are not internal evidence of “slop work” or “ ’prentice work” 
then our experience has been gathered in vain. Take another case 
(p. 49), Diplodermese is a sub-family, but the genus Diplo- 
derma y the type of the sub-family (p. 92), is held in doubt and 
