the cockchafer and the spiracles of the maggot;
from the beautiful woodcuts in Payer's Botanique
Cryptogamique, reproduced in the
Micrographic Dictionary, to Van Beneden's "ideal"
portraits of intestinal worms, both during their
development and after reaching their more
advanced stages; all is admirable — delicate and
elaborate in form, and beautifully adapted to the
end proposed.

For a knowledge of these wonders, we are, of
course, mainly indebted to the microscope,
which, of late, has been both greatly improved
and widely popularised. It is of little use, however,
to be possessed of a microscope, without
having in view some special field of observation
to which to direct it. The holder of the instrument,
in such a case, is like a gunner without
game, a sportsman without a moor, a well set-up
angler without river or lake, a shipowner
without a sea. Small collections of preparations
are soon exhausted, and tire. To rnaintain the
interest, some pursuit is required in which each
amateur may make his own discoveries for
himself. Mr. Cooke, therefore, was inspired with
a happy thought when he undertook to point
out to his public the multifarious attractions of
Microscopic Fungi.

It was also a good idea to lead the way, by
publishing a series of specimens. A collection
of about a hundred minute Fungi, illustrative of
this book, for one guinea, is a cheap and most
agreeable assistant to the student, besides being
an apt addition to anybody's micrological
museum. Most professors of a microscope have
experienced how much more attractive, for
general exhibition, are opaque objects seen
under low powers, than the mysterious details
of organisation which require the utmost strain
both of the eye and the instrument (and
sometimes of the imagination) to make them out.
Specimens of different sands, gold-dust from
Australia, a weevil's wing, the pollen of
flowers, the eggs of insects, the scales of fishes,
and other like colossal tilings (microscopically
speaking), will excite more interest and wonder
in unlearned beholders, than the most delicate
test objects the most clearly defined.

It is not improbable, too, as Mr. Cooke justly
remarks, that in more cases than have come
under his own observation, microscopists,
wearied of diatoms and other allied forms, or
deeming themselves in possession of all that is
novel or interesting in that direction, are seeking
for a new field of labour and a new subject to
kindle a new enthusiasm. To these he advises
that small fungi should have a fair trial. If
variety is desired, here they will have at least
two thousand species, for a knowledge of which
the microscope is essential. If they thirst for
discovery, let them be assured that here also the
earnest worker is certain to meet with such a
reward. Or if they would acquaint themselves
with the manifestations of Divine Power, as
developed in the most minute of created things,
let them follow such observers as Tulasne and
De Bary, and seek the "why and the wherefore"
of the phenomena of mycetal life.

If there should still be any hesitation whether
there is, in this pursuit, sufficient of the element
of variety to render it available for those who
do not desire to pursue the subject into its
deepest scientific recesses, let them go to a good
public library, such as that of the British
Museum, and inquire for the large illustrated
work by Corda, entitled, Icones Fungorum,
or Tulasne's more recent Selecta Fungorum
Carpologia, and after examining the figures of
microscopic fungi in either of those works,
decide for themselves.

Fungi (to set our mental furniture in order)
occupy a very decidedly marked position amongst
other plants. They are like themselves, and like
nothing else. Microscopic fungi do not yield
in importance to their more largely developed
congeners. It is impossible to despise them, or
forget what they can do, even when we know
what dwarfs and minims they are.

A plant, generally, has been defined to be an
organised being, unconscious of its own existence,
without voluntary motion, fed by inorganic
substances which it extracts from air or water,
according to laws independent of the formulæ of
inorganic chemistry, by the help of a faculty
dependent on vital force.

Vegetables are composed of two elements
which concur in the formation of their organs;
the utricle or cell, and fibre. Of the former
alone certain vegetables are composed, and are
thence called utricular or cellular. Amongst
these are the Fungi. Cellular tissue is the seat
of all the essential principles produced by
plants. In it are formed sugar, gum, starch,
fixed and essential oils, crystals, &c. It is
easy, therefore, to understand that plants
composed of cellular tissue only, may be either
nutritive, medicinal, deleterious, or poisonous,
besides being capable of producing mechanical
effects dependent merely on their augmented size
or force of increase.

Fungi are a class of cellular, flowerless plants,
growing on or in damp vegetable mould, or on
living, decaying, or dead organic substances,
vegetable or animal. They do not appear to be
capable of assimilating inorganic food, and are
distinguished from most other plants by the
absence of the chlorophyll which causes the
green or the red in healthy leaves. Fungi are
with difficulty separated from the Lichens; and
the difficulty promises to increase, the more we
know about the plants.

The class Fungi is divided by the Rev. M. J.
Berkeley — probably the greatest living authority
on cryptogamic botany — into six orders. The
list is worth an attentive perusal, in order to
obtain a clear general view of all the fungi, as
well as of those which are necessarily the
objects of microscopic investigation.

They are: I. Mushrooms; II. Puff-balls;
III. Smuts, or Coniomycetes, from two Greek
words meaning " dust-fungi," called also
Uredoideæ, from the Latin for blight. This order
usually bears sessile or stalkless masses of
microscopic fructification, and so comes under
our present head. IV. Mildews, or Hyphomycetes,