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208 NEW PUBLICATIONS.
This work is published under the auspices of the Academy of Medi-
cine of Turin ; it is folio in size, and the learned author prints five
and a half lines of titles after his name on the title-page (each line
eight inches long) ; but we imagine that neither the prestige of the
Academy nor the voliiminons titles of the author will save the book
from well-merited condemnation. Indeed, we see little use in criticiz-
ing it at all, for when the author refers to a certain species as " dan-
gerous," and we turn to the plate only to see a totally different spe-
cies represented, belonging to a wholly different section of the Affa-
ricini, it will be seen that the book places itself bryond the bounds of
criticism. To take an example at random : plate 44. is said to repre-
sent Jgariciis aureus. This species comes under PhoUota, and the
characters of PhoUota are brown spores, and a ring or annulus to the
stem ; in the figure, " carefully coloured after nature," the gills are
pure white, and, of the twenty stems shown on the plate, not one has
a trace of an annulus. To make the confusion worse. Dr. Valenti-Serini
says it is the same with Sowerby's A. fascicularis (t. 285), which is
a Hypholoma, with purple spores, and gills at first dirty yellow, then
purplish- green; but the doctor's figure is probably neither one nor
the other. To show how totally unfit the book is for modern students,
we may add that the author does not refer to books published within
the last thirty years. He is unacquainted with the ' Epicrisis ' of
"Fries ; and (although the book, Avith the exception of two species, treats
wholly of the Hymenoimjcetes) he does not know Fries' ' Monographia
Hymenomycetura ;' and there are no references made to well-known
modern books by Berkeley and others. The letter-press is wordy and
meagre, and, as it generally refers to some other species than the one
intended to be described, it is of little value. The cases of poisoning
and records of experiments with Fungi would have been more valuable
had names, places, and dates been given. The book has already found
its way into the libraries of this country ; and for such students as
care to know what species the cartoons most resemble (if they resemble
any), the following table may be useful. In the cases where the
plates are not referred to, it remains an open question whether the
species xn-e correctly named by the author or not ; in the cases where
the names given are correct, they are in synonyms now quite out of
date. This may be seen at once in plates 2 and 3, where varieties of
Aguricus pkalloides, Fr., are termed Ayarlcus biMosiiH cUrimis and