forms of Ag. phlebophorus on pl. 422, and I am inclined to give way to our Gallic neighbours who regard them as distinct species. I have already remarked elsewhere my conviction that Ag. (Clitopilus) carneoalbus of Withering is not the species of Fries and the continental mycologists (pl. 324).

Agaricus (Pholiota) erebius Fr. will, I presume, be accepted as including also Ag. (Armillaria) denigratus and Ag. Leveilleanus D. & M. Amongst other species of Pholiota I can only allude to Ag. comosus, Ag. heteroclitus and Ag. destruens, expressing my regret that I cannot find good specific differences between them. I shall purposely pass over Hebeloma and Inocybe without remark; to commence would be fatal, as the end would not be within an appreciable distance.

Leaving to private opinion, as an open question, the identity of Ag. (Flammula) inopus with some of the yellow species of Hypholoma, there is but little in Flammula which calls for remark. Indeed it is time that these observations came to a close. Something has already been said of Hypholoma, and more might be said, but for the present we will rest content with the end of the fourth volume of Illustrations, and venture no further. To the uninitiated such a paper as this will be sufficiently uninteresting and wearisome, even if not prolonged to an inordinate extent.

Having had the effrontery to issue some 1,200 plates of these gill-bearing fungi, which has now been the persistent work of some years, with only about 12, or not more than 24 more to come, I may be excused from a desire to hold conference with the Woolhope Club on some "controverted Agarics," and unbosom some of my doubts. Some of us old friends can hardly be expected to meet many times more, let us hope that we have each and all done something for the benefit of our successors, and that we shall leave the study of our favourite little corner in the science of botany better than we found it. Personally, I am thankful for all the encouragement and assistance which has been freely given to me by members of this Club in a long and anxious task. No one could have had more loyal and disinterested help. Had it not been for the Woolhope Club, and especially one of its most amiable and active members, whose loss we cannot cease to deplore, the "Illustrations" would never have been commenced, or brought so near to a successful close.

Upon the conclusion of the reading of this paper, the Rev. Canon Du Port said: Gentlemen,-Dr. Cooke has just told us that it was at the suggestion of some members of the Woolhope Club, and especially of him, whose memory, not only in this house, but also wherever the name of Woolhope is named, is still fresh and will always be respected and loved, that he was induced to undertake the publication of his Illustrations of British Fungi. Not only every member of the Woolhope Club, but every mycologist also, is under the deepest obligation to Dr. Cooke for the production of this unprecedented work-the illustration not of a few pet species found by himself in all stages of growth, and hence easily determined, but the illustration of every species named in the author's handbook and " 'quarumcunque aliarum." The author has to-night

confessed that there are a few mistakes in the 1,200 plates already published; and I believe that there are a few more that he has not yet discovered. How could it be otherwise? But this does not in any way detract from the credit due to the author for boldness, accuracy, and industry. Did ever anybody see a first, or even a second or a third edition of a book on Phanerogamous Botany without a very large number of mistakes and misprints? How much more easily will errors creep in, with how much greater difficulty will they be discovered, in a work on Cryptograms. The proofs of Dr. Cooke's Illustrations could not be corrected by looking into a dictionary for the spelling of a word, or into a herbarium for a specimen of a plant; a delicate tint not rendered quite correctly here, the omission of a letter there, a name wholly misplaced, and the fact overlooked. How could all these be avoided? Besides all this liability to error due to the mere production of the work, there are errors that have crept into our nomenclature, and that are still probably in some cases being handed down by tradition, owing to the method in which names are sometimes assigned to specimens. Fungi are for the most part putrescent in a very rapid manner; they are seldom in a condition to be profitably studied some weeks after they have been gathered, at one's leisure, with description and plates at one's side. There were no figures in existence of a great many before Dr. Cooke's, but they had often to be named by some master in the hunting field itself, and often amidst such a list of freshlygathered specimens that is not to be wondered at if names were sometimes wrongly given; there was no time to discuss the specimen, and an erroneous tradition might possibly be handed down. The king of mycologists, Elias Fries himself, once misled the whole Woolhope Club, by writing down, through a mere lapsus calami, the word saginus for triumphans. As soon as I had mastered the A B C of the subject, I could not satisfy myself by resting so fully on tradition and I am afraid at one time I earned a bad reputation as an incorrigible sceptic. The rectification of some names such as that of Agaricus Storea, to which Dr. Cooke has alluded this evening, was in some measure due to this sceptical spirit; so perhaps I the more readily render the expression of my unbounded admiration of Dr. Cooke's stupendous work and well-merited success, and foretell the higher honour still which all noble minds will offer to him because of his generous boldness in confessing thus publicly to the few errors to be found in his work.

TERATOLOGY.

By the Rev. J. E. VIZE, M.A., F.R.M.S.

TERATOLOGY is the science of monstrosities-of abnormal growths, whether in animal or vegetable life. Looking at man as an animal, we at once detect instances of human teratology in the club foot, hump back, squinting eyes, and a variety of shapes which amount to distortions. We leave man and animals out of the question on the present occasion, and go to vegetable teratology. We shall find amongst plants an enormous amount of malformation, so much so that to anyone who has not had his eyes open to the fact there will be found examples beyond idea. Some of these examples will, we hope, prove interesting. At all events, the searching for them in our gardens, or rambles in the woods and waysides, may beguile many a walk, and charm it with notions, which, to those who do not appreciate study by the roadside, must be somewhat heavy.

It may be said, why study them? They do not appear fascinating from their title. We can do without them. Just so. But there are minds in men which are not satisfied with letting everything alone in blissful ignorance. They find food for the mind in unusual spots of exploration. We say, if you want to be happy and useful never keep in one groove. Try something outside the beaten path of the mill horse.

It may be asked, how do these abnormal forms occur? What causes them? There may be several reasons given. Insects may damage a young plant to a slight extent, and so cause a deviation from the ordinary direct course. Or again, a luxuriant growth may produce a monstrous development. This we can readily Manure your soil too highly, and you at once bring forth an unnatural state of things, the seed feels it, the plant shows it still more. The reverse may occur. Through poverty of surroundings a vegetable may become so enfeebled that it is only a puny child of its parent. Indeed, a host of events may happen to prevent an average growth, and bring about an abnormal one.

see.

Transportation of plants from one country to another must have the effect of making them prolific or depauperated. Flowers from Siberia would fare badly in the temperate zone, still worse in hot climates. Very warm regions, Central Africa to wit, could not send us vegetation which would thrive well here. No.

Again, the changes from moisture to dryness, and the opposite, must alter plants immensely. Go to Kew Gardens; and with all the advantages of artificial dampness, with all justifiable attempts to make plants feel that they are in a natural humidity and temperature, you cannot really succeed. The tree ferns of Kew cannot match the tree ferns of New Zealand. The fir trees are not the fir trees of foreign places, where they are indigenous. They are representations

truly enough, but not up to the standard of excellency obtained abroad.

Man has a good deal for which to account, and also for which to take credit

to himself, in his treatment of things. He can change them considerably for good or the reverse,

Whilst on this subject, let me say I could not help noticing to myself, whilst thinking about our subject of teratology, that it is a great wonder so many vegetables retain so similar an appearance as they do. In the great multitude of plants of the average type we get a likeness running through them all. Why are they not more unlike each other than they are? A little thing would do this. Take for example any plant you like. Let an atom of foreign matter have introduced itself in the natural course of things, or in an artificial way, what distortion it might produce. Let us suppose an atom of grit to have got into the beautiful spiral vessels, what room at once there would be for distortion. The place might become inflamed, and so produce a knot, or let some foreign substance have reached the head of the plant before any perceptible sensation was made. The result might be distortion, it might be hydra-headed, like the Cockscomb flower (Celosia), or twisted considerably from its normal shape.

Fasciation or clubbing occurs occasionally in plants. It is that state in which some parts blend together instead of keeping separate. The first instance I ever remember to have noticed was one in which the branches of a Cotoneaster had become so firmly united with the main trunk of the tree as to form one dense and compact, but flattened, mass.

The common Artichoke of our gardens (Helianthus tuberosus) is liable to this state of clubbing. One case happened in my garden at home. Instead of the round stem, which would probably be less than an inch in diameter, the union of stem and branches had become so firm that whilst you could easily see where the junctions had taken place, yet they were inseparable, and instead of retaining their round shape they had become flat and wide, somewhat resembling three of our fingers side by side. Their width was from 2 to 3 inches. The union of stem and branches was more than a yard in height, the top being very much clubbed.

The gnarls and knots in wood as seen in walking-stalks of an eccentric kind are instances of teratology. It is extraordinary what varied shapes may be recognised by a practised eye, or by the ingenuity of anyone who has a gift for finding resemblances in this way. You may turn these knots into birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, &c. There was a man, recently dead, who had a peculiar talent in this way. In walking along the road he would detect at a glance certain pieces of gnarled wood, and find a likeness in them to animals, and, by securing them, cut them into what they resembled. Of course, in most cases, they were caricatures, still they conveyed to the mind of a stranger what they were intended to be like. His rooms were, I am told, a museum of eccentricities. Elephants, snakes, lizards, toads, et hoc genus omne, were there. He was as rough in manners as need be, and as singular in speech as he was talented in his own peculiar way of cutting creatures from the pieces of wood he found. We generally believe that Nature in her work far surpasses art, and undoubtedly we are right. This man at all events on one occasion thought differently. Referring to one of his specimens which had been rough in the original piece of wood, he called it Nature, and then alluding to his workmanship, and calling it Art, he said, "That formerly was natur and art combined; natur fails, but art triumps." I should like to have seen

his museum, but fear it has no existence now.* It seems a pity that such original work, and work, too, so much out of the ordinary way, should live a man's life and cease to exist when he dies. Men with a special talent of this kind are not as a rule appreciated. Perhaps they are specimens of teratology themselves. The Garden Scabious (Scabiosa atro-purpurea) supplied me with several specimens of unusual growth at the end of August and the beginning of the following month of this year. There were several plants growing in my garden, but one and one only of them had eccentric flower heads, all of which seemed to be more or less affected. The others were all right, and followed the normal form of blossom. The peculiarity in these malshaped flowers consisted in the fact that instead of the flower being regular, the head of the stem of it elongated itself, and so grew beyond the top of the blossom. Instances of the kind are no doubt very occasionally to be found.

It will be interesting to reserve some of the seeds of this plant, and sow them so as to ascertain whether their successor will tend to perpetuate the variety. Not that the process will continue long. It is not likely it will. The plant on which these abnormal flowers came was a very vigorous and healthy one. Perhaps three quarters of the Scabious adopted the general flower head, the other onefourth of it was affected with heads, as shown in the specimens I here exhibit to you. In some cases the green forms seemed evidently to be flowers altered in growth; in others they were elongated into branches.

I found some clover with the heads of the same divided at the top. Many of the plants were affected similarly more or less, but not all of them. This variety of sport must be very common, I apprehend, because after discovering a few specimens on the railway bank at home one day I found numbers the following day on my vicarage lawn and in the churchyard. The thickened heads of clover form a great contrast to the conical shape of the ordinary plant, and so are easily detected.

I have a recollection as a schoolboy of seeing the Sunflower similarly affected as the clover just named. The seeds and seed cases of plants furnish some interesting diversions of form from the usual type. Acorns supply double fructification within one shell. Plums will do the same. Nuts, both hazel and filbert also. They give sometimes three formations. These eccentricities are not very difficult to meet with in the neighbourhood where I live because of the superstitious idea that it is unlucky to break them if they have more kernels than one. The notion seems very singular and must be deeply seated, because one would have thought a boy with a nut would not be in the least particular as to its shape. He would care more for the enjoyment of eating it than anything else. A curb can be put on a boy's appetite you see merely because of a fanciful idea which has no existence in reality.

In a cider country like Herefordshire there must occur to the minds of some of us instances in which monstrous forms of apples have been produced on the

*On the authority of a resident, this museum was at Stratford-on-Avon, its proprietor was Henry Jones, who called it his "Phusiglyptic" museum, and it has ceased to exist since the death, a few years ago, of its projector.-ED.