12 



a bed of the slied spores which -svill represent then- exact shade. These 

 may be removed to a glass slide and their size and form determined by 

 means of the microscope. 



In the present work Dr. M. C Cooke's grouping of the spore series is 

 adopted. 



ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD "MUSHROOM." 



Various opinions have been offered as to the derivation of the word 

 " mushroom." According to Hay, it probably had its origin in a combina- 

 tion of the two Welsh words maes, a field, and rhttm, a knob, which by 

 gradual corruption have become mushroom. Some writers on the other 

 hand regard it as a corruption of tnoKSseron, a name specifically applied 

 by the French to those mushrooms which are found growing in mossy 

 places. But it seems to be of older usage than such a derivation would 

 imply, and therefore the first explanation seems the more likely to be 

 correct. 



In England the term " mushroom " has been most commonly aj^plied to 

 the " meadow mushroom," that being the one best known ; but English- 

 speaking mycologists now apply it generically very much as the French 

 do the term " champignon," while the name " champignon " is restricted 

 in England to the Marasmius oreades, or " Fairy Ring " mushroom. 



Berkeley says the French word " champignon " was originally scarcely 

 of wider signification than our word " mushroom," though now classical in 

 the sense of fleshy fungi generally. The German word J^ilz (a corruption 

 of Boletus) is used to denote the softer kinds by some German authors. 

 Constant and Dufour, in their recently published Atlas des Champignons, 

 include types of a great variety of mushrooms. 



Hay contends that the pernicious nick-name " toad-stool " has not the 

 derivation supposed, but that the first part of the word is the Saxon or 

 old English " tod," meaning a bunch, cluster, or bush, the form of many 

 terrestrial fungi suggesting it. The second sj'llable, " stool," is easily sup- 

 pHed. " The erroneous idea of connecting toads with these plants," says 

 Hay, " seems to be due to Spenser, or to some poet, possibly, before his 

 time." Spenser speaks of the loathed paddocks, " paddock " then being the 

 name given in England to the frog, afterwards corrupted to " paddic," 

 and once received, readily converted by the Scotch into " puddick-stool." It 

 would seem, therefore, from the foregoing, that the term " toad-stool " 

 can have no proper relation to mushrooms, whether edible or poisonous. 



The three mushrooms illustrated and described in this pamphlet. Plates 

 I, II, and III, are of the order Agaricini or gilled mushrooms. They are 

 well-defined types and of wide geographical distribution. 



FOOD VALUE OF MUSHROOMS. 



Rollrausch and Siegel, who claim to have made exhaustive investiga- 

 tions into the food values of mushrooms, state that " many species 

 deserve to be placed beside meat as sources of nitrogenous nutriment," 

 and their analysis, if correct, fully bears out the statement. They find 



