Sauce is, however, quite superiiuous, except a sprinkling of pepper and salt ; the butter iu which they are 

 fried (the mode of cooking we recommend) must be of the best quality, or it will spoil the delicate flavour 

 of the Agarics. In our own district A. virescens is rare. It loves mossy banks and moist situations, and 

 springs up at the season when heavy summer rains prevail ; never in dry or cold weather, nor on sunny 

 sites, nor in bushy underwoods, but where there is umbrage enough to screen, without suffocating, it. 

 Paulet, by choosing to call all esculent Agarics that grow among moss, " Mousserons," has brought 

 together things very unlike each other, as any one who compares this delicate fungus, called in the old 

 poetic style of nomenclature. Champignon des Dames (and well does its pure alabaster form, flecked with 

 green, merit the honour of being so dedicated), with the true Mousseron of cooks, A. Georgii, will perceive 

 at once : they are perfectly dissimilar. Corda says, " Eaten raw, the flavour is sweet and pleasant, like a 

 fresh hazel-nut ;" and in this our experience bears him out ; it is, therefore, remarkable that, when cooked, 

 few of the fungus family resemble animal substance more nearly than this. Eaten raw, also, A. hetero- 

 phj/Uus only betrays the similarity to meat it afterwards acquires, by a shght and not disagreeable taste of 

 pure hog's lard. These two Agarics, wliich have been often confounded, may be distinguished from each 

 other by this difference in flavour when in a natural state ; in the dish, we do not think the palate could 

 tell them apart; the substance of A. virescetis is more solid and crisp. Their being confounded with each 

 other is, luckily, a point of no consequence except to the botanist, as both are equally good for food ; for 

 if it were desirable to reuder the multitude wise on the subject, we should despair. To the " illuminati " 

 we may say : — The unique texture of the epidermis is a sufficient test from any Rtissula you may find. Pallid 

 specimens of A. keterophylhis, with more green and less purple than usual, have been mistaken for A. vires- 

 cens, without tJte warts ; but it never is without the warts except in infancy, before the epidermis is stretched 

 and breaks up in consequence ; these warts are innate portions of the outer coat itself, not superficial like 

 the fragments of a veil, and therefore easy to rub ofi' : they neither rub nor wash off. There never is the 

 sUghtest tinge of purple or red about the fungus, and the green is not that of an apple, as in heterophijllus, 

 but of a verdigris hue, " that of the foliage of pinks " (Paulet) ; the gills are more rigid and not so close, 

 the flesh is much firmer and crisper; in A. heterophyll'us \ki& gills are broadest iu front, in J. VM'fJwe/M 

 attenuated both ways, and altogether narrower in proportion to the bulk of the pileus. We can only add, 

 by way of advice to the mycologist who finds tliis truly lovely and excellent Champignon des Dames, " You 

 are lucky ; cook carefully, and eat fearlessly." 



