2 THE NORTHERN MICROSCOPIST. 


few years that a great number of species are constantly being 
recorded as new to Great Britain—the number 2809 does not 
represent by hundreds the Fungi that are known as British. The 
very certainty of this may induce students to begin Fungology, not 
doubting at all, but that they will soon add some new species to 
the list. 
And now, considering the time that you have been listening to 
me, and that by now you will have heard enough for one night, I 
should be sorry for you to leave here and think the subject is 
exhausted. Not a word has been said to you about certain pro- 
perties and characters certain Fungi have when compared with 
others, luminosity for instance,—very little has been said about 
their ubiquity, and the advantage gained from studying them inas- 
much as they are to be found every day in the year as compared 
with flowering plants which you know are only to be had at a 
limited season. Not a word has been said about the geographical 
distribution, how some countries have been marked—others remain 
untouched, nor have the names of those friends of the science been 
given who in distant lands have proved their love of botany. 
Indeed the paper has left foreign lands and kept us pretty well to 
Great Britain. More might have been said about the hybernation, 
about the modes of fructification, about the tools necessary for 
collecting specimens and about the herbarium. A calculation we 
have been given as to the effect of heat and cold, of light and 
darknesss upon the Fungi. Each section might have been illus- 
trated with drawings, and the magnified parts thereof examined. 
Still a good deal has been brought before your notice, and gladly 
too. 
If any of you intend to study this branch of the Almighty’s. 
work, or are now pursuing any branch of His wonders in Creation, 
never rest satisfied with merely the examination of the specimens 
themselves. His works are grand and magnificent. Study them 
as sO many assistances given to help on your spiritual life. The 
person who looks at a plant and sees no more in it than a plant 
misses his mark fearfully ; he stops just where he ought to begin ; he 
looks at the sign post which is to direct him on his way, and he 
refuses to be guided by it. He gets not the sweetness and the 
richness which might be extracted. ‘There is, by coupling true 
religion and true science together, an incalculable blessing in pro- 
secuting their study. The one eases the path of the other. On 
the other hand, if you divorce from each other these two, you may 
see a pretty thing with the seeing of the eye, but you stop there. 
The right way is to make them go hand and glove together, to let 
soul and spirit apply to the work, and thus get ourselves in training 
for a really happy eternity. 

