Wlarvels of the Universe Ti 
seen such as Naosaur succeeded in developing. During life they supported a fold of skin after the 
fashion of the fin of a fish. But this is not all; for from base to tip these spines developed smaller 
spines at right-angles to the main shaft, like hat-pegs, and what purpose these served no one has 
been able to divine. After its back-fin—for such we may call it—the most striking feature of this 
strange animal was perhaps its head, whereof the jaws were armed with most formidable teeth. 
The only animal to-day which displays anything at all comparable to this strange excess in the 
growth of the skeleton is the Flying Lizard, wherein the ribs are of enormous length, projecting for 
a great distance on each side of the body, and similarly support a fold of skin. But in this case 
the result is not merely “ ornamental,”’ for these skin-folds form a parachute, enabling their owner 
to take flying leaps through the air. 
THE JEWS EAR FUNGUS 
BY EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 
THERE is a certain spot on top of the 
Surrey Downs where there is a consider- 
able thicket of elder-trees. A person 
with susceptible nerves might consider 
the spot uncanny when he noticed that 
these barkless elders had apparently got 
swarthy human ears sticking out from 
their bare wood, reminding him of the 
days when it was the fashion to demand 
an ear as a legal fine and to nail it to the 
pillory. These ears are not all of good 
form, but some of them are perfect at the 
distance of a few feet, provided that one 
sees them on a damp day. 
If, dismissing all gruesome ideas, we 
boldly approach a dead elder and make a 
close examination of one of these objects, 
we shall find that it has the stiff but 
yielding consistence of our own ears, 
velvety to the touch, but cold and thin. 
It is really the fruiting stage of a fungus, 
whose threads have been  ramifying 
through the trunk and breaking up its 
tissues, so that a good kick would serve to 
snap one of these thick stems; and now 
it is manifesting its presence outwardly 
by developing these ear-like gristly flaps, 
upon which myriads of reproductive spores 
are ready to be carried off by the wind. 
It belongs to a group of fungi that are 
characterized by gelatinous flesh that 
Photo by] ; [E. Step, PLS. 
hardens into thin horn under the influence JEW’S-EAR FUNGUS. 
of sun and wind, but plumps up again Sticking from the bare wood of a dead elder-tree, this fungus 
a ; k looks like a human ear nailed to the pillory, or whipping-post, of 
into its old softness after an hour’s rain. fixamnar Ges. 
51 
