ON SKETCHING FUNGI 
4i 
can only be recommended for very rare species. Models 
might be made, but few are able to make them life-like. 
Sowerby’s painful attempts are still on view in the Botanical 
Gallery at the British Museum of Natural History. The usual 
plan is to make coloured sketches of agarics and other fleshy 
species. I quote Dr. M. C, Cooke’s advice on this matter 
(see “ Introduction to the Study of Fungi,” pp. 347, 348) : 
“ With the soft and fleshy agarics the only method 
which we are prepared to recommend is to make a sketch 
or drawing, with the form, size, and colour as in life. It is 
not absolutely essential that they should be coloured, 
although that is best, but the colours should always be 
stated explicitly upon the drawings. To assist those who 
are not facile with the pencil, it is recommended that the 
specimen collected should be divided longitudinally through 
the cap and down the centre of the stem. When this is 
done, one half should be laid on a sheet of white paper, 
with the cut surface downwards and the outline traced 
carefully upon the paper with a sharp-pointed pencil. On 
removing the specimen there will be left upon the paper an 
outline of the form of the agaric, natural size. This may 
be completed by hand, drawing in the line marking the 
margin of the pileus, indications of scales (if any exist), the 
character of the ring (if present), and the scales, lines, or 
markings of the stem. Another copy of the section made 
side by side on the same paper would give the outline of the 
gills, and by a little care and practice it would be found 
easy to draw the line from the stem to the edge of the cap, 
indicating the point of junction of the gills with the flesh of 
the cap. This should be done very carefully and accurately, 
as it must be depended upon to show whether the gills are 
quite free from the stem at their inner extremity, or whether 
they are adnexed, or whether they are decurrent, and to 
what extent they run down the stem. Then, also, it should 
be shown whether the stem is solid or hollow. A little 
