Peridium warty, of a blackish-brown colour, the warts polygonal and striate, flesh traversed by numerous veins; asci 4-6-spored; spores elliptical, reticulated. This plant, the common truffle of our markets, is abundant in Wiltshire and some other parts of England, and probably occurs in many places where it escapes observation, from its subterranean habit. CONCLUSION. Italy is not the country for the English florist; he will find twenty times as many petals at home. Trim parterres are not inventions of the South; summer-houses would be no luxuries in a climate that never knows winter; the only Conservatories that flourish there are not for flowers, but for music. In few northern regions is Flora worse off for a bouquet than at Rome or Naples; regarded merely as the herald of Spring and not appreciated for her own sake, as soon as she has waved her wand over the land and covered it with the March blossoms of Crocuses, Cyclamens, and Anemones, her reign is over. All scents are held in equal abhorrence save those of frankincense and garlic, for which there seems to be a prescriptive toleration; but every other odour, fetid or fragrant, musk[195] or mignonette, is equally proscribed; and an Italian Signora would as soon permit a Locusta to cook for her, as a violet to scent her boudoir. To pick wild flowers is as dangerous as it is difficult to find cultivated ones; a _coup de soleil_ or a fever is easily procured by imprudent exposure before sunset, while the interval between that and night is too brief to be employed for the purpose; but when the season for flowers is long past, and Autumn with her fruits is come round again, when the stranger can wander forth where he lists without an umbrella, he will be able to luxuriate amidst the lovely scenery, and to delight himself in the natural history of the district: the season of the periodical rains has ceased; the repose of the forest is no longer troubled by the Power of the waters; the mountain Pines borne for miles down into the valleys are stranded on the broad shingly bed of the exhausted torrent; broken bridges are safely repaired; the maize is receiving the last mellowing touches as it festoons the cottage fronts, the prickly chestnut-pods are beginning to gape and the brown chestnuts to leap out shining from their envelopes; the last reluctant olive has been beaten from the bough; the vintage has nearly ceased to bleed; night fires[196] already begin to nicker on the mountains, and the hemp stubble is daily crackling on the plain. This is indeed the time for enjoying Italy; nature has revived again, and with nature, man. The feverish torpor, I had almost ventured to call it the summer hybernation, has ceased with September, and Autumn has come round with the vivifying influence of a new Spring; then if we go abroad to wander, whether our walk be across plains or through upland woods, we shall not stroll a mile without stopping a hundred times to admire what is to many