231 
by the Agency of Insects . 
the foetid odour is not developed until the change in the 
consistency of the hymenium allows the spores to be sucked 
up by the flies. 
In regard to odour, in the 25 species in which its presence 
or absence is mentioned there are 19 (76 per cent.) foetid, 
and six (25 per cent.) not foetid; while among the flowers 
of 4,189 species of phanerogams examined by Kohler and 
Schubler 1 only 417 (9^9 per cent.) had odour. There seems 
to be no relation between the presence or absence of odour 
and the degree of conspicuousness ; the most inconspicuous 
(e.g. Phallus curtus , Berk.) and the most conspicuous forms 
(e.g. Clathrus cancellatus) may be equally foetid, and vice 
versa. The odour is sometimes most intense. Cooke 2 , for 
instance, says : — c The experience of more than one artist, 
who has attempted the delineation of Clathrus from the 
life, is to the effect that the odour is unbearable even by 
an enthusiastic artist determined on making a sketch.’ 
I have mentioned the flower-like character of colour and 
the presence of odour, but in many cases there is a third 
attraction or subsidiary aid to conspicuousness in the peculiar 
form of the receptacle, which probably exhibits more variety 
in this than in any other group of fungi. In Dictyophora 
spicuousness, and this for two purposes : (a) to attract insects, as in the Phalloidei : 
( [b ) to ward off the attacks of animals by advertising the presence of disagreeable 
or noxious qualities, as in the case of many poisonous fungi, and, as Darwin, Belt, 
and Wallace have shown, is the case among certain animals, as bitter brightly 
coloured caterpillars, etc. 
In tabulating the colours of different groups I have been struck by the pre- 
dominance of brilliant colours, especially red and yellow, among the Pezizae , 
which, differing from most of the Agarici, have the hymenial surface freely exposed, 
as in the Phalloidei, the spores often lying as a layer on the surface, and also among 
a small group of Agarici, the Amanita, many of which have beautiful tints and 
agreeable odours, and grow chiefly in places where insects are abundant. In such 
cases, and also among the Mycena and several small Agarici, it is usually the 
margins of the gills or lamellae which are most brightly tinted. The presence of 
hair-like appendages on the stem, etc., is significant from the function of such 
structures in relation to the floral parts of many Phanerogams, and it is worth while 
noting that many brightly coloured Pezizae have similar structures arranged like 
‘ guards.’ This aspect of fungi is well worthy of further study. 
1 Op. cit., p. 330. 
2 Fungi : their Nature, & c., p. 116. 
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