Marasmus

“ Marasmius, Cantharellus, Lactarius, Russula, Hygrophorus, Collybia, Pleurotus, Clitocybe, Tricholoma, Armillaria, Lepiota, and Amanita. The plants of Marasmius are usually thin and dry, reviving with moisture. Cantharellus is characterized by the obtuseness of the edges of the lamellæ, Lactarius by the copious milky or sticky fluid which exudes from the plants when cut or bruised. Russula is closely allied to Lactarius, and the plants bear some resemblance in external appearance to those of that genus, but they are never milky, and the gills are usually rigid and brittle. ”

“ But the marmose is smaller, and his snout sharper; the female has no pouch under the belly, she has only two loose skins near the thighs, between which the young fix themselves to the teats. The parts of generation of the male and female marmose resemble, by their form and their position, those of the opossum. When the young are brought forth, and fix themselves to the teats, they are not so big as small beans. ”

“ It is somewhat tough, the solid stem particularly so, the gills wide apart, and cream-coloured.
This species has no downy hairs at the base of the stem. Certain other species of Marasmius, frequently found growing on dead leaves in woods, and possessing this hairy down, are to be avoided. There is a poisonous plant sometimes found in similar situations, and often with the Fairy-Ring Champignon (M. urens) , fig. 30, Poisonous Sheet. I once tested its qualities (by accident) . See description. [Pg 49]
Truffle. ”

“ Cooke divides the Marasmii into three tribes, and these again into several subdivisions. In the division Scortei of this genus are classed three species which are described in the works of most of the Continental writers; the Marasmius oreades, which has recognized value as an esculent, Marasmius urens and Marasmius peronatus, which have the reputation of being acrid and unwholesome. ”

“ The marabou feeds on carrion, like the vulture. Its throat is very large, and it will greedily eat everything that comes in its way. In the swamps and plains around Khartoom, on the Nile, are immense flocks of marabous, and they are so daring as to come to the slaughter-houses on the outskirts of the city in search of food, and whole ox ears, and shin-bones with hoof attached, have been found in the crop of specimens which have been killed. ”

“ Mammals belonging to quite different Orders show traces more or less marked of a marsupium. In young Dogs the teats are borne upon an area where the skin is thinner, the covering of hair less dense than elsewhere—all points of resemblance to the inside of the pouch of a Marsupial; in addition to this there are traces of the sphincter marsupii muscle. In other Carnivora there are similar vestiges. In Lemur catta a more complete rudiment of a marsupial pouch is to be met with. ”

“ Marsupials are also found in America; but, with this exception, they now exist only in Australia and in the adjacent islands New Guinea and Tasmania, which is evidence that the latter islands were at one time united with Australia.
The marsupials are so called from their having a pouch (marsupium) for carrying the immature young. The young are born without much development, and they are at once transferred to the pouch, where they continue to grow until they are able to take care of themselves. The pouch is supported by the marsupial bones, which are equally developed in both sexes. ”

“ I believe this is not the case with any of the different species. I know for certain that most of them pass the winter in a state of torpidity, and of course require no provisions, as they eat nothing during that season. In this we observe one of those cases in which Nature so beautifully adapts a creature to its circumstances. In the countries where many of the marmots are found, so severe are the winters, and so barren the soil, that it would be impossible for these creatures to get a morsel of food for many long months. ”

“ True, Maremma was so lonely, so wide, so virgin in its water-fed greenery, so severed by its season of disease from all the moving world, that such a life here was less strange than it would have been elsewhere, and the native mountaineer in the hillside woods, and the shepherd from the north on the rich grasslands, were nomads as utterly as ever were their forefathers in days when Pan and Faunus were the gods of the forest and pasture. ”

“ That the young opossums stick to the teats of the mother till they have acquired strength, and a sufficient growth to move with ease, is a fact not to be doubted; nor is it peculiar to this species only, since we have seen it in that of the marmose. The female marmose [246] has not, like the opossum, a bag under the belly; it is not, therefore, in consequence of the assistance which the young receive from the pouch that they stick so long to the teats, and increase in that immoveable situation. ”

“ Side by side with this wonderful outgrowth of the mammalian type, in the first plasticity of its vigorous youth, the older marsupials die away one by one in the geological record before the faces of their more successful competitors; the new carnivores devour them wholesale, the new ruminants eat up their pastures, the new rodents outwit them in the modernized forests. At last the pouched creatures all disappear utterly from all the world, save only Australia, with the solitary exception of a single advanced marsupial family, the familiar opossum of plantation melodies. ”

“ An animal born so premature as the little opossum must necessarily perish from exposure, were it not for the curious provision for its protection and the constant supply of milk afforded in the pouch of the female. The internal cavity of the adult female marsupium seems to be formed by an infolding of the external skin. ”

“ Closely allied to the last are the Marmots, genus Arctomys. They differ in the rudimentary character of the thumb and in the longer tail. The eyes and ears are small. The distribution of the genus is Nearctic and Palaearctic. There are ten species of {466}the genus. The Alpine Marmot, A. marmotta, is familiar to most persons. The animal lives high up in the Alps, and when danger threatens it gives vent to a shrill whistle. It hibernates in the winter, and as many as ten to fifteen animals may be found closely packed together in a single, carefully-lined burrow. ”

“ The advantages to be derived from the worship of the Maruts may be deduced from the following extracts from the Rig-Veda, which devotes more than thirty hymns to their praise. "The adorable Maruts, armed with bright lances, and cuirassed with golden breastplates, enjoy vigorous existence; may the cars of the quick-moving Maruts arrive for our good." "Bringers of rain and fertility, shedding water, augmenting food." "Givers of abundant food." "Your milchkine are never dry." "We invoke the food-laden chariots of the Maruts." ”

“ The bird is very well described by Aelian, under the name of Κήλα, which is perhaps a relic of the still preserved vernacular one. It is described by another name, as one of the peculiarities of India, by Sultan Baber. See PELICAN.
"The feathers known as Marabou or Comercolly feathers, and sold in Calcutta, are the tail-coverts of this, and the Lept. Javanica, another and smaller species" (Jerdon) . The name marabout (from the Ar. murābit, 'quiet,' and thence 'a hermit,' through the Port. marabuto) seems to have been given to the bird in Africa on like reason to that of adjutant in India. ”

“ The general colour and appearance of the Alpine marmot are well shown in the Plate; and it will suffice to direct attention to the shortness of the ears as a feature connected with burrowing habits. In one Himalayan species the tail is considerably longer. In the Alps marmots dwell high up among bare rocks, above the zone of vegetation, where not even goats venture, and where it frequently snows for six weeks together in winter. In such desolate situations these hardy rodents make their home in the little islands of rocks between the glaciers. ”

“ The first definite proof of the occurrence of a pouch in any mammal not a Marsupial or a Monotreme was made by Malkmus, who found this structure in a Sheep. It seems, however, that the structures found in the higher mammals are not always comparable to the marsupium of the Marsupials, but sometimes to the mammary pouch of the Monotreme. That the Marsupials are a side line, and not involved in the ancestry of the Eutheria, is an opinion which is at present widely held. ”

“ The order of living marsupials presents remarkable diversity of structure and habits, containing herbivorous, insectivorous, and carnivorous species; yet we find all these traits combined in one and the same species, the opossum. It is probable that, by adaptation to similar modes of life, the marsupials have developed groups parallel to those of the placental mammals. However, it is certain the Quadrumana seem represented by the Phalangers, the Carnivora by the Dasyuri, Insectivora by the Phascogales, Ruminantia by the kangaroos, and Edentata by the Monotremes. ”

“ There are also other small fungi of soft texture and doubtful quality closely resembling these which grow in lawns and pastures, and the object of this plate is to teach the amateur to avoid all such. The suspicious varieties of Marasmius do not grow with the edible species, but in woods. ”

“ In captivity the marabou is lord of the inclosure, and in zoological gardens where specimens have been confined no other birds, nor even small beasts, dare approach the feeding trough until the hunger of this impudent bird is satisfied, and it has retired to the warmest corner for a nap. The immense strength of its bill makes it a formidable enemy, and when fighting for food it will often overcome the largest vultures, and wage successful battle with beasts of prey. ”

“ The lightning lows like a cow, it follows as a mother follows after her young, when the shower of the Maruts has been let loose. Even by day the Maruts create darkness with the water-bearing cloud, when they drench the earth. Then from the shouting of the Maruts over the whole space of the earth, men reeled forward. Maruts on your strong-hoofed, never-wearying steeds go after those bright ones, which are still locked up. May your fellies be strong, the chariots, and their horses, may your reins be well-fashioned. ”

“ The marmots are splendid prospectors, always digging deep ditches, throwing out on the surface all the stones. In many places I saw mounds the marmots had made from copper ore and farther north some from minerals containing wolfram and vanadium. Whenever the marmot is at the entrance of his hole, he sits up straight on his hind legs and looks like a bit of wood, a small stump or a stone. As soon as he spies a rider in the distance, he watches him with great curiosity and begins whistling sharply. ”

“ All the true marmots (Arctomys) , a genus of which the species live at tolerably high altitudes in Central Europe, Asia and North America, appear to spend the winter in uninterrupted slumber buried deep in their burrows. They apparently lay up no store of food, but accumulate a quantity of fat as the summer and autumn advance, and frequently, as in the case of the woodchuck (A. monax) of the Adirondacks, retire to winter quarters in the autumn long before the onset of the winter cold. ”

“ The Marutse excel in their methods of dressing [139] fish, some being stewed in their own oil, and others, after they have been dried in the sun, being broiled on ashes. The kinds that are stewed are those known among the Zambesi tribes as tshi-mo, tshi-gatshimshi, and tshi-mashona, all rapacious fish, except the hard-lipped inquisi, being disliked by them. I rarely saw them eat the common flat-headed sheat-fish; they avoid it chiefly because its flesh is so often perforated by a parasite, a sort of spiral worm about an inch long, not unlike a trichina. ”

“ This singular and lowly organised type of mammals constitutes almost the sole representative of the class in Australia and New Guinea, while it is entirely unknown in Asia, Africa, or Europe. It reappears in America, where several species of opossums are found; and it was long thought necessary to postulate a direct southern connection of these distant countries, in order to account for this curious fact of distribution. When, however, we look to what is known of the geological history of the marsupials the difficulty vanishes. ”

“ The young, though born alive, [58] are brought forth in a very immature state and, with the exception of one genus (Perameles) the fœtus is not attached by a special structure, the placenta, to the womb of the mother. Like the Prototheria, the Marsupials, which were once spread all over the world, are at present almost entirely confined to Australia and the adjoining islands, the Opossums of North and South America, and one small genus (Cænolestes) in the latter continent being the exceptions to this rule of distribution. ”

“ Those Maruts have grown to feed all these beings, or, it may be, they have come hither for the sake of a friend, they who always bring quickening rain. They have spotted horses, their bounties cannot be taken away, they are like headlong charioteers on their ways. O Maruts, wielding your brilliant spears, come hither on smooth roads with your fiery cows whose udders are swelling; being of one mind, like swans toward their nests, to enjoy the sweet offering. O one-minded Maruts, come to our prayers, come to our libations like Indra praised by men! ”