40 
THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
marked volva. The cap is adorned 
with minute silky fibrils. It grows in 
grassy places infields and pastures and 
is highly esteemed as an esculent. 
Agaricus arvensis. 
Allied to the meadow mushroom is a 
species, sometimes growing with it, 
but does not possess the excellent 
qualities of it and is said by some to be 
poisonous. It is larger, and turns to a 
brownish-yellow when bruised or 
broken; The cap is smooth and very 
white; the gills are dirty brownish- 
yellow, becoming dark brown. It has 
a big, ragged, fioccose ring, and the 
pithy stem is usually hollow. 
Russula heteroyhylla. 
The “Variable” mushroom is well- 
known on account of its sweet, nutty 
taste. Its gills are white and some¬ 
times branched; flesh, white; stem, 
solid, white, and ringless; top, firm, 
variable in color; the thin, viscid 
covering of the pileus. is commonly 
subdued green, but at one time ap¬ 
proaches greenish yellow or lilac, and 
at another, gray, or abscure purple. 
The top is at first convex, becoming 
concave. It is a highly esteemed 
article of diet. 
\_To be continued .] 
NEW micro-organism is report¬ 
ed by Dr. F. .T. Thorn bury to 
be found in fifty out of the 1,000 
hogs inspected daily at the government 
abattoir at Buffalo. The org'anism is 
a peculiar fung'us, having the form of 
bundles of threads of various colors. 
It belongs to the saccharomyces or 
yeast group, and has peculiarities of 
growth contrasting in many respects 
to other organisms. The blood of in¬ 
fected animals is heavily laden with 
the fungus, which proves fatal to rats 
and white mice within twenty-four 
hours after innoculation. 
The Whippoorwill. 
T HINKING the readers of your 
valuable paper might be inter¬ 
ested in reg'ard to the nest and 
nesting habits of that rare bird, the 
Whippoorwill, a bird not so rare as it 
is difficult to find, I will try and de¬ 
scribe the finding of the bird and nest. 
In the first place I am not an egg col¬ 
lector, but a collector of birds, and oc¬ 
cupy the position of Taxidermist in the 
Museum of the University of Michigan. 
The morning of the 7th of May at 4 
o’clock, our Curator, Professor Wor¬ 
cester, and myself started for the War¬ 
bler Woods, two miles from Ann Arbor, 
for specimens, It was a warm, rainy 
morning and almost too dark to shoot 
wben we arrived at the woods. We 
soon separated, Professor Worcester 
going to the left, while I kept to the 
right of a small thicket, when suddenly 
from my very feet flew a bird that from 
its color and irregular flight, I at once 
identified as the Whippoorwill, A. car- 
olinensis. Carefully looking over the 
ground I saw the nest and its one egg. 
The nest was in a slight depression, 
and was composed wholly of leaves 
carelessly placed. Wishing to test the 
habit this bird has of returning to the 
old nesting place, I took the egg with 
the thought of coming in a few days 
for the other one, and if possible, the 
bird. But it was not until the morn¬ 
ing of the 16th of May, that the Pro¬ 
fessor and 1 again made a trip to the 
“Woods for Warblers.” It was a clear, 
beautiful morning and the birds were 
singing in the tree tops, but my 
thoughts were on the spot where I ex¬ 
pected to find “Poor Will.” I carefully 
approached the site of the old nest. 
Nothing but leaves rewarded my 
search. Just at the edge of the thicket 
I saw a bird and shot it. In hand it 
