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NOTES ON FUNGI, FORESTAL AND OTHERS.
MAINLY CORRIGENDA TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF
BRITISH FUNGI.1
By M. C. COOKE, M.A., LL.D., A.L.S., &c.
[Read at the "Fungus Foray," October 12th, 1901.]
I take advantage of this opportunity to address a few words
to my mycological friends, not only those who may hear my
voice, but those absent ones who will rest content to hear the
echoes through the press. Now that, for the past fifteen years,
the fungus forays of the celebrated Woolhope Club have practi-
cally ceased, opportunities are few for intercommunication with
those most interested in the study of Fungi. Notwithstanding
all the laudable efforts to infuse life and vigour into the British
Mycological Society, I am much afraid that the labour is greatly
in vain, and that gradually, since the cessation of the Woolhope
Forays, and the decease of the great moving spirit, there has
been a gradual, but certain, decadence in interest, in the subject,
and the number of students, has been slowly becoming less and
less. To me it has been the source of great regret, not only that
so many have been removed to a higher sphere, but that of those
which were left, so many have become lukewarm and indifferent,
and so few young students have come forward to fill the vacant
places. I am forced to the conclusion that the study and
interest in the larger fungi has subsided into much the same con-
dition in which it was nearly half a century ago. This I attribute
largely to the falling away of the old school of mycologists, by
death or otherwise, supplemented by the collapse of the Hereford
Forays. It proves, if proof were needed, how much the
prosperity of our local societies depend upon the enthusiasm and
self sacrifice of one or two active and energetic men.
By your permission I will devote a few minutes to what may
at first appear to be a personal subject, although I shall
endeavour to avoid treating it in a personal manner. You are all
aware that I had the good fortune to print and publish a book of
figures of fungi, containing portraits, or what were meant to
be portraits, of upwards of a thousand species of Gill-bearing
Fungi. With whatever success or failure, this was associated, I
1 These notes, although somewhat foreign to our plan, are printed in our Journal in as-
much as they will be useful to students consulting Dr. Cooke's great work, and they also con-
tain several corrections and additions to our Epping Forest "Fungus Flora."—Ed.