like a potato or haricot, all the world may satisfy appetite by making a meal of it ; and the result of various 

 testimony as to the qualities of A. rubescens is certainly not favourable. The ketchup made from it, spoils 

 almost immediately, becoming ammoniacal and slimy, the Agaric itself taken ia smaU quantity when broiled, 

 is certaudy not unpalatable, but the statement of that very exact, and in esculent Funguses xuiquestionable 

 authority, Paulet, has always prevented our trying experiments on ourselves, which do not seem to have 

 agreed very well with his dogs. Notliing can be more fallacious than judging of the qualities of a Fungus 

 from its being the food of insects and snails ; the latter particularly delight in such as have acrid milk (old 

 Gerarde would, perhaps, account for it on the principle of things, " hot in the first degree ", being wholesome 

 for those of a " cold " constitution) and there are very few of the soft-fleshed tribes, all of which are the 

 nurseries of innumerable insects, so much in favour as the poisonous Boletus luridus, on breaking an old 

 one it is a living mass of larvae. Our present subject is so soon attacked by insects that it is very rare to 

 find specimens devoid of wTigghng hfe, and being a very common and abundant kind, it must be of great 

 service in the economy of insect existence. Tliis is a use for it, sufficient to satisfy the inquirer that nature 

 never wastes her resources, for if it should seem a pity that so many Agarics should not be made into food 

 for man, it may also be a pity that he should rob so many maggots of their subsistence, or, at any rate, make 

 an entomological meal when he only intended a mycological one. Arfariciis rubescens has much beauty in a 

 young state, the warts are the remains of a xmiversal veil or volva, which is fugacious, or, as it is styled, 

 " obliterated ", the ring when carefully detached from the edge of the pileus, retains the impression of every 

 giU wliich it protected, and the giUs are like carved ivory ; if bruised it becomes reddish, and so it does 

 where pierced internally by the insects, so that at last the clean debcate ivory texture, turns to a dingy-red 

 disagreeable mass of decay ; in wet weather this is very rapid ; few Agarics give out so much liquid in their 

 deliquescence, wliich it is a waste of courtesy to style ketchup, where A. rubescens is the subject operated upon. 

 The colour of the epidermis varies, but a vinous-red is the prevalent tinge. The subject of our plate is 

 in youthful perfection. 



