340 
Notes. 
At the same time, and especially when I found my attempts failing, 
I examined the Pezizas themselves to see if anything of the nature of 
a sclerotium or similar resting body had given rise to the crop ; the 
results were negative. I also examined the plants round the pond for 
signs of such sclerotia, as well as the remains in the heaps, for it 
seemed possible that the sudden outburst of the crop on the particular 
heaps of mud from the pond might be due to large numbers of resting 
sclerotia having been dug up from the pond, although no such bodies 
are known in this group of Pezizas. All was in vain : no trace of 
any such body could be found either on the ddbris in the heaps or on 
the plants at the margins of the pond. 
The observation that a few smaller patches of the Peziza occurred 
later in November on the clay heap not brought from the pond, made 
one ask whether, after all, it might not be merely a case of suitable 
pabulum, and to suggest that the blue gault clay was the favouring 
factor for the germination of wind-borne (or otherwise carried) spores. 
Here again all experiments gave negative results, and I could not get 
the spores to germinate in either clay-washings or on the clay itself. 
Moreover, I found that although the Fungus seemed to be spreading 
on to the sewer-clay, which was separated only by a narrow space 
— a couple of feet or so — from the heap of mud and debris of 
Epilobium, Scirpus, Polygonum , &c., where the large crop of Fungus 
grew, there was very little or none to be found on adjacent heaps of 
blue clay mud, also from the pond. On the other hand, a heap of 
the pond-mud and debris which had been fired to kill the Polygonum, 
&c., and covered with the same from the heap last mentioned, bore an 
abundant crop. 
All these facts suggested that the hypothesis of wind-borne spores 
and a suitable pabulum was less probable than the hypothesis that 
the spores or other resting form of the Fungus had been brought from 
the pond with the mud. 
Several times during repeated examinations of the heaps and their 
crop of Peziza cups, and of the latter when brought into the laboratory, 
I had noticed that the hymenium was marked with pale sunken 
patches, whence the asci and paraphyses had evidently been removed 
by some gnawing animal, and it required little search to find the 
culprit, in the shape of a small slug ensconced during the day on the 
lower side of the cup or on the ground near. The proof that the slug 
was the culprit was readily obtained by shutting it up in a glass dish 
