158 
THE HAPPY FUNGUS-HUNTER. 
July, 1892. 
THE HAPPY EUNGTJS-HUNTER.* 
BY W. B. GROVE, M.A. 
It lias been remarked that, during later years, the myco¬ 
logist has found himself much better provided with text-books 
to help him in his study than the students of other branches 
of cryptogamy. In the case of algte, lichens, and mosses, 
the number of books recently published which are a real 
help to the enquirer may be reckoned upon the fingers ; not 
only text-books, but figures, are in these classes few and far 
between, and the student is compelled often to rely upon 
fragmentary lists and papers. But in the case of the fungi, 
this reproach is being rapidly removed, and if present 
intentions are adequately carried out, the British mycologist 
will soon have a modern and sufficient library to consult 
in any department of the study to which he may devote 
himself. There is only one thing wanted to secure many 
happy hours in the future to the budding fungus-hunter, and 
that is that the promised books shall be written, after suf¬ 
ficient study, by men who are really acquainted at first hand 
with the branches of which they treat. 
Complaints are sometimes made by those unacquainted 
with the complexity of the subject, that no cheap work 
containing figures of fungi has yet been published. That has 
always been and is still partly true; a few thousands of 
minute organisms and a thousand or so of larger ones, 
cannot be illustrated and described in a cheap form until the 
demand for such a work becomes enormous enough to recoup 
the expenses of production. Nor would an enormous demand 
entirely remove the difficulty. Figures of the larger fungi 
are of little use unless coloured, so difficult of appreciation 
are the differences which separate the species. It is only by 
limiting oneself to a specified and compact branch of the 
subject, that the opposing demands of cheapness and accuracy 
can be reconciled. 
This is what is done in the first of the books here noticed. 
Dr. M. C. Cooke is an old parliamentary hand at fungus¬ 
eating as well as at fungus-hunting ; no one knows more of 
the subject, at any rate in this country, than he. It is now 
thirty years since he published his “ Plain and Easy Account 
* (1) British Edible Fungi: How to Distinguish and How to Cook 
Them, with coloured figures of over forty species, by M. C. Cooke. 
London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, and Co. 237 pp. ; price, 7s. 6d. 
(2) British Fungi: Phycomycetes and Ustilagineae, by George 
Massee. London: L. Reeve and Co. 232 pp.; eight plates, with 137 
figures. Price, 7s. 6d. 
