Like insects, fungi do not content themselves
with preying upon dead organised matter; some
of them also attack living substances, both
animal and vegetal. They have been found
growing in the air-cells of birds, and even upon
the lining membrane of the human lungs. Silk-
worms are sometimes destroyed in vast numbers
by an internal fungus called muscardine. A
species of wasp, inhabiting the West Indies,
may often be seen flying about with fungoid
plants as long as its own body growing upon it;
and the caterpillar of a New Zealand moth, when
it retires into the earth to undergo its metamorphosis,
is attacked by a fungus which destroys
it. A very curious circumstance connected with
this fungus-bearing caterpillar is, that the plant
invariably grows from immediately behind the
head of the victim, and from no other part of
its body. One sort of fungus specially devotes
itself to destroying the hoofs of horses and the
horns of cattle, sticking to nothing eke. Several
French surgeons, among the rest Lemery,
narrate cases in which, on removing bandages
from sore surfaces, they have found a collection
of funguses growing upon them, generally about
the size of a finger; and one of them adds that,
having reapplied the wrappings, a second batch
came out in the course of twenty-four hours, and
this for several days consecutively.

The uses to which funguses have been put are
various, such as making dye or ink, for stupifying
bees, for staunching blood, and for making
tinder. A fungus called Agaricus muscarius is
largely used in Kamtschatka, in decoction, as an
intoxicating liquor. Reeves says this is the
Moncho more of the Russians, Kamtschatdales,
and Koriacs, who use it for intoxication; they
sometimes eat it dry, but more commonly im-
mersed in a liquor, and when they drink it they
are seized with convulsions in all their limbs,
followed by that sort of raving which accompanies
a burning fever; they personify this
mushroom, and if they are urged by its effects to
suicide, or any other dreadful crime, they pretend
to obey, its commands; to fit themselves for
premeditated assassination they recur to the use
of Moncho more.

Of the funguses formerly employed in medicine,
the ergot of rye is the only one which
keeps its ground. A fungus called Polyporus
suaveolens has been much vaunted for its surprising
effects in cases of consumption, but it
has now fallen entirely into disuse.

In Lapland, Linnæus saw the Boletus igniarius,
which is shaped like a horse's hoof, hung
up on the walls of the cottages, and used as a pincushion.
It is made use of as tinder in some
parts of England and Germany.

The Yeast-plant is another of the useful fungi.
It surprises many persons to be told that yeast
is a plant. Yet, nevertheless, it represents one
condition of a species of fungus remarkable for
the diversity of forms it exhibits, its almost
universal distribution, and the wonderful effects
it is capable of producing. The forms in which
it is familiar to most persons, although its nature
may be unsuspected, are yeast, the gelatinous
vinegar-plant, the "mother" of vinegar,
and many other decomposing vegetable infusions,
and the common blue or green " mould" which
occurs everywhere on sour paste, decaying fruits,
and all dead organic matters exposed to com-
bined moisture and moderate heat. Yeast and
the vinegar-plant are the forms in which it
vegetates when well supplied with food. Mildew
is its fruit, formed on the surfaces exposed to
the air, at certain epochs, like the flowers and
seeds of the higher order of plants, to enable it
to diffuse itself. This it does most effectually,
for the microscopic germs, invisible singly to
the unaided sight, are produced in myriads, and
are so diminutive that ordinary motes floating
in the atmosphere are large in comparison.

A wholesome vinegar can be made by placing
a developed vinegar-plant in a syrup composed
of a quart of water and half a pound of sugar.
If kept covered from dust in a cool place, the
vinegar after being filtered will be fit for use.

But, the edible, the most useful of the
funguses, are the most neglected by botanists.
The Chinese present a striking contrast to ourselves
in the care they bestow upon their esculent
vegetation. About a dozen years ago, M.
Stanislaus Julien presented to the Academy of
Sciences, at Paris a Chinese treatise in six
volumes, with plates, entitled the Anti-Famine
Herbal, containing descriptions and representations
of four hundred and fourteen different
plants, whose leaves, rinds, stalks, or roots, are
fitted to furnish food for the people when
drought, ravages of locusts, or the overflow of
the great rivers have occasioned a failure of rice
and grain. Of this book the Chinese Government
are said annually to print thousands, and
distribute them gratuitously in those districts
which are most exposed to natural calamities.

In England wilful ignorance and silly prejudices
still prevail to such an extent that Mr.
Badham says: " I have myself witnessed whole
hundredweights of rich wholesome food rotting
under trees; woods teeming with food and not
one hand to gather it; and this, perhaps, in the
midst of potato blight, poverty, and all manner
of privations, and public prayers against imminent
famine. I have indeed been grieved to
see pounds innumerable of extempore beef-steaks
growing on our oaks in the shape of fistulina
hepatica; agaricus fusipes to pickle in clusters
under them; puff-balls, which some of our
friends have not inaptly compared to sweetbread,
for the rich delicacy of their unassisted
flavour; hydna, as good as oysters, which they
somewhat resemble in taste; agaricus deliciosus,
reminding us of tender lamb kidneys; the beautiful
yellow chantarelle, growing by the bushel,
and no basket but our own to pick them up; the
sweet nutty-flavoured boletus, in vain calling
himself edulis where there are none to believe
him; the dainty orcella, the agaricus heterophyllus,
which tastes like the crawfish when grilled;
the agaricus ruber, and agaricus virescens, to
cook in any way, and equally good in all; these
are among the most conspicuous of the edible
funguses."