BEAUTIES OF THE FUNGI RACE. 
86 
of some old copse in Monmouthshire, deep in the val- 
ley, calm, serene, shaded by the pensile, elegant, au- 
tumnal-tinted sprays of the birch, the ground enamelled 
with every colored agaric, from the deep scarlet to pal- 
lid white, the gentle gray, and sober brown, and all 
their intermediate shadings. Fungi must be considered 
as an appendage and ornament of autumn ; they are 
not generally in healthy splendor until fostered by the 
evening damps and dews of September, and in this sea- 
son no part of the vegetable world can exceed them in 
elegance of form, and gentleness of fabrication : but 
these fragile children of the earth are beauties of an 
hour : 
“ Transient as the morning, dew, 
They glitter and exhale,” 
and must be viewed before advancing age changes all 
their features. There is a pale gray fungus (agaricus 
fimiputris) that may very commonly be observed in 
September on the edges of heaps of manure, and in 
pasture grounds, most beautifully delicate, almost like 
colored water just congealed, trembling in the air from 
the slightness of its form, its sober tints softly blending 
with each other, lined and penciled with an exactitude 
and lightness that defy imitation. The verdigris agaric 
(agaricus seruginosus) is found under tall hedge-rows, 
and near shady banks, and few can exceed it in beauty 
wdien just risen from its mossy bed in all the freshness 
of morning and of youth, its pale green-blue head var- 
nished with the moisture of an autumnal day ; the veil, 
irregularly festooned around its margin, glittering like 
a circlet of emeralds and topazes from the reflected 
colors of the pileus. But it is by examination alone 
that the beauties of this despised race can be perceived, 
not by a partial and inadequate description. 
The certain appearance of many of the fungi can by 
no means be relied upon, they being as irregular in 
their visits as some of the lepidopterous class of insects. 
It is probable that decayed vegetable matter is in most 
cases the source whence this race of plants arises, while 
a certain degree of moisture and temperature, acting 
in concord with a precise state of decay, appears neces- 
