commenced. Some orders appear only in a single matrix, but the greater
part of them flourish on different decaying substances.

Dr. M.C. Cooke, in speaking of non-parasitic fungi, and especially of
moulds, says: "It would be far more difficult to mention substances on
which they are never developed than to indicate where they have been
found." The parasitic fungi, however, generally confine themselves to
certain special plants, and rarely to any other. It is only the condition
of these special plants, when affected by decay, that seems favorable for
their development; not because their spores (assuming that all fungi come
from spores,) possess the intelligence to fly about and hunt up the proper
nutrient matter on which to subsist during their developmental progress
from specific spores into genetic forms of life. The rust or blight of
grain is not the cause, therefore, but rather the result, of the common
disease known as "blight." Without some excess or deficiency of absorption
and elaboration in the growth of grain or plants--something essentially
disturbing their normal and harmonious processes of development--no
mycological forms would appear on their stems or roots, nor would they
develop themselves on their fading leaves or congested and decaying fruit.
To say that there is any intelligent preference in these fungi--the
different species of _Mucor_, for instance--for disgusting offal over
decaying fruit, bread, paste, preserves, etc., is to predicate a higher
degree of intelligence of fungus spores than of the average brute
creation, with all its wonderful instincts for guidance.

We might refer to other classes of fungi developing themselves in the
testa of hard seeds, and in the interior of acorns, sweet chestnuts,
etc.,--those in which there is no discoverable external opening by the aid
of the microscope--to show the absolute absurdity of the theory that the
spores of fungi, including the non-parasitic and other autonomous moulds,