June, 1891 . 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH FUNGI. 
189 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF BRITISH FUNGI.* 
This truly valuable work has at length reached its conclu¬ 
sion, having occupied ten years in publication. It was at first 
intended to have embraced the whole of the Hymenomycetal 
Fungi, but so many of the subscribers appeared unwilling to 
support it to its extreme end that Dr. Cooke has wisely 
decided that the present part, lxxvi., shall conclude the work. 
As it now stands it occupies eight large octavo volumes, and 
contains all the gill-bearing Fungi, or Agaricini , of Britain. 
To complete the Hymenomycetes there remain the species of 
Boletus , Polyporus, Hydnum , the Thelephorei , Tremella , and 
Clavaria ; and these, I understand, would have occupied nearly 
four additional volumes. The majority of fungologists will 
concede that the excluded portion is, if anything, more needed 
than the agarics, because they have not at present been 
figured to anything like the same extent. 
From what I learn, the author is willing to publish these 
four volumes as a separate work if he can obtain sufficient 
support to guarantee him from severe loss in the matter, and 
it is to be sincerely hoped that such support will be forth¬ 
coming. Every botanist should do what he can to obtain 
subscribers. 
The volumes under review contain just 1,200 coloured 
plates, and represent 1,400 species, which is more than one- 
fourth of the whole number described from all parts of the 
world. A large part of these have never been figured before, 
and I am informed that most of the plates in the earlier 
volumes had the advantage of being submitted to the late 
Rev. M. J. Berkeley for his opinion and advice, especially 
such as are critical. The sum fixed as the publishing price 
of these volumes was most moderate, but the reduction of one- 
fourth made to subscribers brought them below anything of 
the kind ever attempted previously. Contemporaneous works 
on the same subject issued abroad were more than double the 
price, and much inferior in artistic merit. It may be stated, 
and without exaggeration, that the present work includes a 
larger number of species of Agaricini than any six of the 
largest and most comprehensive works previously published, 
without taking into consideration the number of species of 
which figures are repeated in the different works. 
The plates in the present work offer an advantage which 
no previous work possessed, in that all the outlines were 
* “ Illustrations of British Fungi,” by M. C. Cooke. Yds. I. to VIII. 
8vo. Williams and Norgate. 
