PEZIZA COCCINEA
Sta,—One of the most attractive finds on walks in childhood in Dorset lanes was the brilliant and exquisite " red-cup," as we used to call it. I have never found it elsewhere, and there are two questions about it which some of your readers interested in country life may be able to answer.
The first is whether a thing so beautiful and so conspicuous has never been noticed by any writer about the English countryside, or, if it has, by what name it has been called.
The O.E.D. does not know it as " red-cup," and for " fairies' bath " only refers to Britten and Holland.
If there is no mention of it in English literature, the explanation might be extreme rarity. Yet I am told that it used to be one of the objects to be " painted from nature " at a school at Clifton, and that there and at Bath it was to be seen on moss in fishmongers' shops. I have also heard that it was found at Belstead in Suffolk, and once some years ago two or three miles from Woodstock.
The second question, therefore, is whether it really is of so rare occurrence as to account for its escaping any mention in literature and not receiving even the tribute of an English—and better—name.-
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