that the spores have only one chance in 280,000 of landing on a suitable tree wound
under normal conditions. Competition with other fungi is yet another factor, for the
first spores to reach a suitable site will have the best chance of survival. Also the
more spores of the same species that germinate at the same time and place, the greater
vigor of the ultimate mycelium as a result of the fusion of the mycelia from two
or more spores.

Thus to sum up possible reasons for multi-spore production three factors have
deen suggested: 1. Difficulty of placement. 2. Competition from other fungi.
3. Sex requirements.

Attacked wood has a mottled appearance due to spaces resulting from destroyed
cells being filled with the white mycelium, hence the name white mottled rot, in
describing its appearance. A characteristic feature of its presence in living wood is
a brown stain in the line of advance of the mycelium.

In conclusion, four species of “‘conks” or Bracket fungi have been mentioned; all
agree in the essential features of growth and reproduction. All are useful, in that
they help to remove what otherwise might be hopeless entanglement of dead wood,
and all are of varying degrees of economic importance, by readily attacking logs,
lumber and living trees. In the main they are serious rivals to man’s use of the
forests, and his actions are tempered very acutely by this primaeval factor in the
use of forest products. He must therefore keep forests clean and vigorous and attend
to the logs as soon as they are cut, if the hard-working fungi are to be circumvented.

An investigation of the literature on the subject will show what an immense amount
of research has been undertaken in order to understand the ways of the bracket fungi,
whose efficiency in the production of spores by the billion is as great now as in the
days of long ago when man’s activities were never a factor in the realm of nature.

——_——~>--?>

@ BY T. P. O. MENZIES

The [rish Deer, (Crus Giganteus)

E have in the Vancouver Museum a very fine set of antlers of the extinct
Irish Deer, which was presented to the Museum some time since by the late
Mr. A. D. Drummond.

The spread of this specimen is 9’ 8”. Other specimens are on record which
measure 11 feet. These fossils are truly remarkable, for the Irish Deer has been
extinct almost as long as archaeologists have been able to trace the existence of man
in that country. To have, therefore, so ancient a relic of that long distant era, which
is still well preserved, is a fortunate circumstance.

This truly mighty deer appears to have been of a species somewhat akin to the
Fallow Deer and the Ruffs Deer of our time, an assumption based on the structural
peculiarities of the antlers of all three, which have greatly palmated forms, with
up-curling “points”. But the Fallow Deer of today stands about 3 feet high at the
shoulder only, whereas the Great Irish Deer stood at least 6 feet at the shoulder.
His antlers weighed between 80 and 90 pounds, and were produced afresh in spring
and early summer each year. This alone speaks eloquently of the great virility of
this monarch of ancient times. This very attribute may well have been one of the
main causes of his extinction. A theory well advanced is that in their time they kept
to the open country around the numerous lakes and marshes which it is well known
were much more numerous in central Ireland than at the present. Geologists assure
us that at the dawn of recorded history heavy forests covered much of the land not
occupied by these small lakes. Unlike most of the gigantic animals of ancient times,
the Irish Deer had slender limbs, and as their habitat was mainly beside the waters
and in the marshes where both herbage and water were abundant, it is reasonable to
assume that wild animals such as wolves would be certain to attack them, causing
them to seek safety in the shallow lakes, where their remains are found in the greatest

P35)