72 BRITISH EDIBLE FUNGI. 



during the autumn, but it is rather solitary in its 

 habits. The only method we have adopted for 

 cooking is that recommended for some other delicate 

 species, after adding pepper, salt and butter, to place 

 them in a plate or dish, cover with an inverted basin 

 and place in an oven for ten minutes. Serve on 

 sippets of toast. 



X.— DUSKY CAPS. 



Most people have favourites in food, as well as in 

 everything else, and we have our favourite mush- 

 rooms, w^hich we always collect in preference to any 

 others. One of these is the parasol mushroom, but later 

 than that, and when all the parasols are closed for the 

 winter, we direct our special attention to the dusky 

 caps, or cloudy mushroom {Agaricus nebularis) which 

 flourishes to the end of November, and we have eaten 

 it as late as the I2th of December, at which period 

 edible fungi are rare. It is neither a small nor a 

 solitary species, since in some years, in a favoured 

 spot, we have seen sufficient within an hour to fill a 

 wheelbarrow. Twenty or thirty-five specimens 

 growing amongst the same heap of dead leaves, 

 nearly covered and sheltered from the frost. 



In this species the cap is from two and a half to six 

 inches in diameter, convex at first, but soon flattened, 



