125 
ship with his familiar friends the flowering plants, and yet which 
feed, as he himself feeds, on matter previously organised. Such 
a revelation, which all who have acquired the first elements of 
biology may receive, cannot but enlarge his conceptions of the 
vast hierarchy of Nature. But short of this, the youngest, the 
most thoughtless, will find something pleasurable in noting the 
obvious external features of Fungi: the plan of their multi- 
farious forms, the meaning of their different parts, and the 
system of their classification. When one hears, as is not in- 
frequently the case, some naive expression of astonishment that 
these queer fragile objects which spring up at our feet for no 
other purpose it would seem than to offer a mark for a slashing 
walking-stick, have each and all of them a name and a place in 
the universe as definite if not as important as that of the heed- 
less destroyer, one begins to recognise that Mycology has in it 
something of almost ethical import. 
Then there is their edibility. From ethics to gastronomics 
is somewhat of a descent perhaps, but the appeal of the palate is 
not to be altogether disregarded, and may even bear its own 
particular lesson: new foods may lead to a reconsideration of 
the whole question of foods and feeding, which some say we 
English stand in great need of. Be that as it may, people are 
quite ready to listen when one talks of the toothsome savours 
and wholesome qualities of the edible Fungi. Not that they are 
always so ready to try them; they have heard of the poisonous 
species, and, like certain—shall we say mythical ?—beings, “ they 
believe and tremble.” But after an experiment on the vile body 
—of the teacher, I mean—seeing him eat fungus and not there- 
after incontinently expire with his feet in his armpits, they 
gather courage, taste, and are converted. This | say from an 
instructive if brief experience. For my part I cannot help 
talking about Fungi whenever I can get anyone to listen, and [ 
ind the culinary and esculent aspects of Mycology will gener- 
ally command attention—and not only that side of the subject 
either, but afterwards at any rate, the more scientific side, and 
that which lends itself to Nature-study. Among sundry public 
discourses in which I have tested the attractions of Fungi, there 
was one I delivered—pardon this egotism, it illustrates the 
subject—to our Southampton Elementary Schools Head 
Teachers’ Association, and they evinced no little professional 
interest in it. You see here some diagrams and figures which I 
made for the occasion. I do not disguise from myself that they 
are not exactly brilliant from the point of view of executive 
faculty or artistic merit—but here let me interject that I had, 
‘mong other pzdces de conviction, a large and varied assortment 
of spore-maps which came in for much wondering inspection 
and remark, especially when I smeared them with my finger to 
