To dry and preserve a collection of fresh fungi is at times a very difficult task; for instance, some species are so entirely covered with a tenacious gluten that if they were at once put between drying-papers, it is certain they would never come out again with the least chance of being recognized by even the most acute fungologist; others are so deliquescent that in an hour or two they would dissolve into a watery mass, soak through all the paper, and leave a mere dirty stain between the sheets where the plant was originally placed. As a contrast, some of the Polyporei (as the young state of _Polyporus igniarius_) are so hard that nothing but a steam-hammer would have any chance of flattening them. There is considerable difficulty in ridding the plants from the larvæ with which they are often infested. A few drops of the oil of turpentine will, however, generally drive them from Agarics and other fleshy fungi; and, in regard to the woody Polyporei, a good plan is to place the plants in an oven, or on a hob for a short time, where the heat is not too powerful to destroy the plants, but still sufficiently potent to drive the larvæ from their holes. If this is not done, the collector's experience will probably be the same as mine has more than once been; viz. on opening a package (which should contain some choice dried fungus), to find only a stain, a few skins of dead maggots, and a little dirt--in fact, some of the species in my herbarium, though mostly poisoned with corrosive sublimate, get entirely devoured by rapacious and poison-proof larvæ, mites, and minute beetles.