have omitted them, and this is not the place to discuss their autonomy. Some observations upon these matters will be found in the works referred to below.[1]
We do not find in Mr. Berkeley's work any account of the genus Pilobolus, of which two species, P. crystallinus and P. roridus, have been found in this country. The omission is, we presume, accidental, for there has never been any question as to the Piloboli being true Fungi.
Had the recent mutiny in India resulted in the expulsion of the British from the peninsula, little, it has been said, except an unfinished railway or two, would have remained to bear witness that they had ever been there. Whatever change the present system of administration may have made in other respects, we have failed to learn that greater encouragement is likely to be afforded to the investigators of the natural products of India by its new government. Our nearest Continental neighbours have not been so long in possession of the wild country which forms the southern shores of the Mediterranean, yet the "Exploration Scientifique d'Algerie" is, we believe, a fait accompli, and affords, at any rate, a good basis for future workers in the same field. Our transatlantic cousins have still more recently annexed California and Texas; but a goodly row of Reports upon the zoology, botany, mineralogy, and meteorology of these countries have already appeared under the auspices of their enlightened government; and were these countries to revert to barbarism to-morrow, would remain to prove that the civilized races who temporarily held them had not neglected the opportunity of adding to the general stock of knowledge of mankind.
Now, it is impossible to value too highly the labour's of Hardwicke, Hodgson, Blyth, Hooker, Thompson, Jerdon, Tennent, Cantor, and a host of others, too numerous to mention, who have worked long and laboriously in investigating the different branches of Indian zoology and botany; but we think we have a right to complain that no encouragement has been given on the part of our, Indian rulers to any general work, such as might embrace the results thus arrived at, and show what has really been effected towards the working out of the Fauna and Flora of a country which we hold "in trust for the benefit of mankind."
- ↑ "Quart. Jour. of Mic. Science," vol. iii., p. 263; vol. iv., p. 192; vol. v., p. 126. "Annales des Sciences Nat.," 3rd Ser., vol. xx., pp. 130–171. Ib., 4th Ser., vol. v., p. 108, and vol. viii., p. 35. "Philosophical Transactions," 1857, p. 543, et seq.
