of her agents to work to bring them back again into her laboratory. It will take some months to do this, but she will not be idle in the meantime; she has always plenty of material in her magazines. She wants them first to protect the seeds and plants from that energetic servant of hers, the frost. Then they are attacked by various beetles and other insects, and gorgeous toadstools and other forms of fungi prey upon them; then the frost comes and helps, and between them all they break up the tissues and fibres, and even the very cells, of the leaf. And the rain and dew, and the melting snow, carry the particles slowly down into her stores ready for her use.

And from these remains she takes numbers of beautiful crystals of phosphate and oxalate of lime, and phosphoric and sulphuric acids; she also finds many other substances there which she carefully takes, and sends them through the tiny rootlets of the trees and plants into the big roots and up into the stems and branches. And here she forms them again into leaf-buds and flower-buds. And the wind and rain, the sun and dew, help them and bring them fresh substances again, and the buds expand into leaf and flower,

And so they go on, never stopping; for though in the cold, cheerless winter, when Nature herself seems gone to sleep, it is only apparently so, for she is still at work-hard at work in her workshops preparing the buds and blossoms for the coming spring. And then we see the value of these crystals from the dead leaves, in the beautiful silken flowers of the Crocus, the bright yellow blooms of the Cowslip and Prim

M

rose, the fronds of the ferns now unrolling, and vivid green new-born leaves expanding in myriads on every branch. And later in the year, when these green leaves are in their turn changed in hue, the value of these crystals will again be shown in the rosy apples and purple clusters of juicy grapes, and garners piled to the roof with golden grain.

Now that the leaves have fallen, let us take a ramble through the wood or on the heath, and though we shall enjoy our walk, our enjoyment is tinged with a feeling of sadness. We miss the beautiful foliage! There are the beautiful smooth-stemmed, giant beeches, fantastically gnarled and contorted, but their rich red autumn-tinted leaves are forming a thick crisp carpet below. The drooping branches of the silver-barked birch are naked. The clumps of furze are still enlivened by a few golden blooms, and the bracken is still glorious in its autumn tints. But there is a feeling of melancholy in the air. The beauty of the year has departed, and we think of approaching winter, with this heath and its bracken and furze and heather all covered by snow, and all its life stilled for a season.

"Here still the daisy rears her head,

And buttercups still sparsely linger;

High in the heavens, with wings full spread,
Above us floats a glorious singer

Whose song, though full of rapturous strains,
Seems to have caught a tone of sadness,
As though he to the wind complains

For cutting short his summer gladness."

Yes! even the songs of the birds seem changed,

though that may be only the reflex of our own feelings. We know what we have lost for another five months, and we therefore regret

"The fall of Autumn,

Its chilly evenings and its dropping leaves
Bringing soft melancholy thoughts."

CHAPTER XIII.

ABOUT FUNGI.

FUNGI are an important class of flowerless plants, belonging to the division called Thallogens, those plants which have no distinction between stem and leaf. They consist wholly of cells, and are distinguished from other plants by the entire absence of chlorophyll (see Chapter II.) from their cells, which are also devoid of starch. Instead of absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, as do green plants, they absorb oxygen and give off carbon, in this respect resembling animals. Some of the lower forms were described in Chapter I.; we shall have occasion again to refer to several of these.

α

b.

FIG. 134.

B

The Yeast-plant (Torula) we may take as a type of the fungus cell. Here, in fig. 134, we have enlarged representations of it. At A we have a single plant,a simple cell, consisting of a cellulose wall (a) and a central mass of protoplasm (b), with a clear space or vacuole (c). In this it does not differ from ordinary vegetable cells, but its difference may be seen on

subjecting it to an experiment. Examined by the microscope, we note the absence of any green or red colouring matter. It has no chlorophyll. If we run in a little solution of iodine on the slide we shall observe that the protoplasm is stained brown; the cell-wall remains uncoloured. If starch were present it would be stained blue. Torula, therefore, has no starch, and this absence of starch is a characteristic of fungi.

If we place the slightest particle of yeast in a saccharine solution, we shall observe that the liquid, previously clear, has in a day or two become turbid. If we take up a small quantity of the liquid on the point of a pencil or a glass rod, and place it under the microscope, we shall find that the whole of the fluid. is teeming with millions of Torula, which have been produced by the multiplication of the few we added to our liquid. We now take two bottles and half fill them with fresh saccharine fluid, then add the slightest drop of the turbid liquor to each, cork them both up, and place one in complete darkness, the other in the light. On examining them in a few days, we shall find that they are equally turbid. Therefore Torula is not dependent upon light for the power of growth; this also is a characteristic of fungi. On loosening the cork after a day or two, we shall notice a terrific rush of air or gas from the bottle, or if we fail to loosen or remove the cork the pressure from within will do it for us with considerable vehemence. But we can test this gas, and shall then find it to be carbonic anhydride, which is the same as the gas exhaled by animals. Here we have another characteristic of