Marvels of the Universe 823 
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Photo by] (LW. Saville Kent. 
THE FRILLED LIZARD. 
According to Mr. Saville Kent these Lizards are, in the more desert parts of Queensland, habitually terrestrial, and may 
frequently be seen running in the curious fashion illustrated in the above photographs. The long strides and rapid motion of 
the short hind legs give them a very comic appearance. 
dough prepared from wheaten flour, it requires to be cooked before it can be eaten. This is effected 
by heating stones and putting them with the Bread-fruit into an oven. 
Another species, the Jack-fruit tree, can be distinguished from the Bread-fruit tree by its leaves 
having uncut edges, and by the fruit being less spherical in shape ; but it is equally useful as a food 
Besides timber, the Bread-fruit tree yields caoutchouc, which the natives use for caulking the 
seams of their canoes, whilst a coarse kind of cloth is elaborated from the bark of young trees. 
THE DRY ROT FUNGUS 
BY EDWARD STEP, F.L.S. 
THERE are many of the smaller fungi that cause annoyance and loss to man by spoiling his garden 
and field crops, or ruining his food-stores indoors. But probably a more-to-be-feared fungus foe 
is the Dry Rot, which most people have heard of, but few have seen. It is more insidious than most 
of our fungus foes, because it works in the dark, bringing our house down about our ears, and perhaps 
giving no sign of its presence until its evil work is fairly complete. Its work may be compared with 
that of the termites in the tropics, who eat the solid core of supporting beams, leaving a mere outer 
skin to simulate strength until the crash comes, and shows that what was thought to be, and looked 
like, sound timber is merely a thin tissue full of dust. 
In the case of Dry Rot the crash comes before the beams and rafters have been thoroughly 
demoralized, for the attack has usually been made where they rest upon the wall. The Dry Rot 
fungus, in its beginnings, is a weak and innocent-looking thread that it seems absurd to put in 
competition with the strength of solid oak; but give it the conditions it loves—a still, close 
atmosphere—and it will reduce the strength of the oak to the weakness of tinder. It appears to 
proceed by applying an exudation to the microscopical cells of which the timber is built up, and 
this renders the firm cell-walls soft and brittle, whilst the contents are dissolved out to supply the 
fungus with food. So fed, it increases the length and number of its threads, until they form a thick, 
