HABITATS OF FUNGI.

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and colour ( Antennaria cellaris) is peculiarly attached towine-cellars, where it is the pride of the merchant when ithangs about the walls in black powdery tufts. It is not, how-ever, the only occupant of wine-cellars. There is a Fungus,whose exact character is unknown, which first attacks thecorks of wine-bottles, destroying their texture, and at length im-pregnates the wine with such an unpleasant taste and odourthat it is perfectly unfit for use ; while another, equally ob-scure as to its kindred, after preying upon the corks, sends downbranched threads into the liquid, at length rendering it a merecaput mortuum. Dry -rot, again, is peculiarly attached to cel-lars, to the destruction of wine-shelves ; and an instance is onrecord in which this or some other Fungus attacked a cask ofwine, and increased to such an extent as to completely blockup the entrance. The wood of the cask was the first object ofattack, but the wine supplied a great portion of the sus-tenance of this enormous monster, which is only equalled bythe great curtain of Dry-rot which lately covered the walls ofa sandstone railway tunnel in the north of England.

Perhaps the most curious circumstance under which Fungiare developed is when they are found in situations apparentlycompletely excluded from the external air, as the PotatoMould, in the cavities of the fruit of Tomato, Dactyliumroseum in the hazel-nut, or a red Penicillium in an egg. Thespawn of Fungi, however, is capable of making its way, andthat very rapidly, through the closest structures. In somecases its progress from without is easily traced, in others itis wholly obscure, and yet in multitudes of instances, as ina large proportion of the Sphteriacei, it is quite certain thatit must have penetrated at some period into the matrix,whether in a living or a dead condition. A few minutespecies, indeed, have never been found in any other situation