ZOOLOGY. 



THE SQUIRREL AS A FUNGUS-EATING ANIMAL. 



All mycologists must have noticed the frequency with which the larger 

 hymenomycetous fungi are injured by animals. I have seen various Baled, 

 notably B. luleus, with its pileus pecked to pieces by birds, I believe by rooks. 

 Mr. Broome once found a number of Tubers stored up in the nest of a field 

 mouse. Often the pilei without being destroyed entirely are marked by 

 the teeth of rodents, and it has usually been supposed that a rabbit was the 

 mycophagist. While on a visit to Glamis last September, Mr. Stevenson and 

 I were one day sitting quietly under a tree on Hunters Hill, discussing sundry 

 mycological problems, when we noticed a squirrel descend from a tree and 

 begin eagerly to devour a fungus. We allowed him to finish his repast, and 

 then inspected the fragments. He had left little else but the base of the stem 

 and the gills, but we had no difficulty in recognising these as belonging to 

 Russula nigricans. A little later in the day we noticed another squirrel run up 

 a tree with something in its paws. This obviously was a fungus ; and as the 

 little creature seemed to set great store by its prize, which was so large in pro- 

 portion to itself, that it was with considerable difficulty that it got it conveyed to 

 the upper branches, we refrained from frustrating its endeavours ; but we 

 were almost certain that the fungus in question was another Russula, namely 

 R. foeiens, a fungus not considered to be edible. Growing near the foot of the 

 tree were several specimens of Boletus salanus, all the pilei of which bore marks 

 of having been recently nibbled by some small rodent. There were no indica- 

 tions of rabbits near, and doubtless the squirrel was in this instance too the 

 mycophagist. Respecting Boleti as articles of human food, personally, I do 

 not like them. There is a degree of sliminess about them when cooked, so 

 strongly suggestive of boiled slugs — a mere fancy of course, but a sufficiently 

 strong one to be unpleasant. It is not generally known in this country that the 

 common Boletus granulosus is esculent. My friend the Rev. Canon Du Port 

 is warm in its praise. The other day I met a lady with a basket of Boletus 

 luleus, which were subsequently eaten and enjoyed by a hungry family in King's. 

 Lynn. Fries mentions the fact that both these species are edible, but it is 

 certainly not generally known in England, whatever may be the case in the 

 North. There is a record in one of the Woolhope Transactions of a lady being 

 made ill by eating Boletus fiavus ; so unless you are quite clear in your know- 

 ledge between B. fiavus and luteus, gentle reader, you had better leave them 

 for the squirrels. CHARLES B. Plowright. 



7 King Street, King's Lynn, 25//* Oct., 1S83. 



BEKWICKSHIKE SLUGS. 

 By WM. DENISON ROEBUCK. 



I AM indebted to Mr. R. Renton of Fans, near Earlston, in West 

 Berwickshire, for living slugs collected in that neighbour- 

 hood, some of which are interesting varieties — interesting, inas- 

 much as they have not before been formally placed on record for 

 the British fauna. The forms themselves are no doubt common 

 enough, but the group has been so much neglected by British 

 malacologists, that the arrears to be worked up in investigating the 



