ON UNDERGROUND FUNGI. 
8 
the truffles, which they would at once devour. But to prevent this 
the truffle-hunter carries biscuits, or something which the dog likes 
better than truffles, and while a portion is thrown down the specimen 
is secured. 
Truffles, as said before, are produced principally in districts which 
abound in lime. Many attempts have been made at their cultivation, 
and it was once confidently announced that, like mushroom spawn, 
truffle spawn would in a few months be on sale. But it ended in utter 
disappointment. Still, after this result, the late Mr. Disney, of the 
Hyde, near Ingatestone, made experiments in this direction, and he 
was so confident of success that I was invited to witness the result of 
his experiment, the failure of which might indeed have been antici¬ 
pated, when it appeared that his experimental specimens of truffles 
were obtained from the Italian warehouses, consisting of refuse slices 
of truffles, dried by artificial heat. In one case alone something like 
germination seemed to have taken place. Experiments more rationally 
conducted were made at the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick, but 
the truffles merely rotted without anything like germination. The result 
was so unsatisfactory that the experiments were not renewed. Better 
attempts were made by others in more favourable quarters. In the 
south of France the Viscomte Noe, who was once well known in this 
country as an emigre, raised truffles in some abundance by enclosing 
a tract of ground in the forest to keep off the wild boars, which would 
at once have devoured everything. The ground was then well watered 
with fluid in which fresh truffles had been grated, and thus he obtained 
a supply ; but this could scarcely be called cultivation. Another plan 
is adopted with great success in Poitou, which yields the best truffles 
of Paris. A tract of ground is selected on the downs, and when pro¬ 
perly enclosed is sown with acorns, and in a few years, when the seed¬ 
lings are well established, there is always an abundant supply which 
continues for several years, when it generally ceases. It was supposed 
that the young truffles were parasitic on the rootlets of the seedling 
oaks, but this has not been proved ; and in many countries they are 
by no means confi:ied to oaks, indeed, are most abundant when there 
is an admixture of beech, hazel, and even of conifers. Their site is 
sometimes easily detected by the presence of an insect belonging to the 
genus Leiodes, which hovers about them with the view of depositing 
its eggs in a favourable situation for their introduction into the 
fungus, and thousands of specimens are in this way destroyed by the 
larvae of the beetle. 
It is time, however, that I should say something of underground 
Fungi in a scientific point of view. 
It is well known to every one who has paid the least attention to 
the structure of Fungi and their classification that there are two great 
types, namely, those which produce their reproductive bodies (spores) 
on the tips of certain privileged cells called sporophores or basidia, and 
those which are developed xoithin certain organisms which are called 
{isci or sacs, The former is considered in general the higher division. 
