192 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
gler, who has perhaps come down to low ground for water, or for a 
frog or two, is still to be reckoned with. ‘Twice within the last few 
years I have met a rattlesnake in the region about Chickatawbut 
hill; in neither case, however, was there really any danger, and in 
neither case did the snake survive the encounter. 
On this hot August afternoon our party left Milton about two 
o’clock. In twenty minutes or so we were to all appearances far in 
the country. Resisting the temptation to alight and take the empty 
one-horse “ barge” or “team " that stood waiting above Tucker's hill 
to take us or any one to Houghton's Pond — south of which, it may 
be noted, stretches a broad extent of low ground, well wooded, to 
Ponkapog Pond, a region that usually well repays a visit —we rode on. 
to the nameless point that marks the limit of the first five-cent fare. 
Striking into the young, hard-wood growth on the east of the road 
we began, though on unpromising ground, to find toadstools immedi- 
ately. The first species to be seen was Lactarius volemus, common 
enough, but always interesting in the woods. Some of the older 
specimens had the margins turned up, showing the gills, and the sur- 
face of the pileus was much cracked. Near by was a single large 
specimen of Peck's Lactarius corrugis, allowing an instructive com- 
parison of the two species, which are very closely related. The latter, 
as its author says, is darker, and characterized by the variously wrinkled 
pruinose-pubescent pileus. It is fairly abundant in rather dry de- 
ciduous woods in a few places in the Reservation. More conspicuous 
than the Lactarii was Boletus aveolatus, numerous fruits of which thrust 
their shiny red caps well above the leaves, some of which, however, 
stuck fast to the viscid surface. ‘Though not well known farther 
north, this red Boletus, with its rough, lacerated, red and yellow stem, 
covered with a raised network of coarse, stiff ridges, is familiar in 
woods about Boston, and is not improbably common throughout 
eastern Massachusetts. The blood red of the young pileus gives 
place to some yellow in more mature fruits. The young pores, of a 
deep rich red, are frequently covered with drops of moisture. The 
flesh changes quickly to blue, and the pore surface is often irregularly 
pitted, characteristics which, with the very rough stem, identify the 
plant with that which Frost described as Boletus a/veolatus B. & C. 
By that name it seems convenient to refer to it, pending a revision of 
the synonymy of this group of the genus. Associated with these 
interesting species were Boletus chromapes, always attractive by its 
