lxx Journal of Proceedings.
the information which is thus obtained regarding species and their
structure is such as I believe can be gained in no other way, while it
adds very greatly to the interest and pleasure of the pursuit; and at the
same time the possession of such figures impresses the forms on the
memory, and provides a means of reference at least as useful as your
herbarium of flowering plants,
Supposing then that any member of the Club should take up the
study with the intention of making careful coloured drawings, it would,
I think, be a considerable addition to the interest of our meetings if they
would bring such drawings on occasions like the present for comparison
and discussion. No great artistic skill is needed for their execution, as
Fungi are most easy objects to copy. You place the Fungus on paper and
trace the form with pencil, and you at once have an accurate representa-
tion as far as it goes ; the colouring of course requires care to bring it
as close to nature as possible. Then you cut the Fungus down the
middle and lay one half on the paper and again trace the outline, care-
fully noting the shape of the gills and the solidity or hollowness of the
stem, and you have almost all that you want. But now I wish to draw
your attention to an interesting addition to your own work which may
be obtained by causing the Fungus to produce a drawing of itself. I
mean by placing it in such a manner that it may form a picture of its
gills by the deposit of its spores. The Agarics, which is the class we are
now principally considering, are divided in their systematic arrange-
ments into five primary sections, namely, those having white, red, brown,
purple and black spores; this, though an artificial arrangement, is not
only useful for their classification, but there is to a considerable extent a
natural character correlated with these colours. Now with all dark-spored
Fungi of the group, the process for obtaining this nature-printing is
most simple. You cut off the stem just below the cap or pileus, which
you place on a piece of white blotting-paper, and cover it with a wine-
glass or tumbler to prevent any movement of the air disturbing the fall
of the spores. In a few hours you will find, on carefully lifting off the
pileus, that a perfect plan of the gills has been thrown down on the
paper. You then paint the underside of the paper with thin gum water
sufficiently to soak through to the spores, and leave it to dry, when
you will find them firmly set and the picture can then be fixed on the
margin of your drawing. You thus have a permanent and perfectly
accurate memorandum which retains its colour for years ; how long I
cannot say, but I have deposit!! thrown down ten years ago which appear
entirely unchanged. The method has this advantage, that if it is wished
to compare the spores of fresh specimens, you have merely to touch
the old deposit with the point of a wet brush and pick off with a needle
a few fibres of the paper with the spores attached, and you will find them
in perfect order for examination under the microscope, however long they
have been preserved. The character of the spores, which varies so greatly
in size, colour, shape, and roughness in different kinds, seems to be very
constant in the same species, and in verifying your specimens it is most
important to observe these particulars accurately. This, perhaps,
deserves more attention than it has hitherto received in the works which
we have at our disposal. Their size can easily be drawn with the
camera lucida, and measured by a scale taken from a micrometer.
And now I may refer to the prodigious rapidity with which these
spores are produced. As most of us are aware, the gills of those
Hymenomycetous Fungi which carry gills are covered by the hymenial
layer, consisting of cells constantly pushing their way to the surface at
right angles to the plane of the lamina ; a large proportion of these cells
produce at their extremity four delicate stalks or sterigmata, on which