FUNGI. 245 



ready kindness, calls to her coachman to stop, and let me 

 alight, and collect my treasures. I did not want the 

 fungi, though I could not restrain an exclamation at 

 their beauty ; but now I gather them to bring to her. 

 She is charmed and amazed to behold anything so 

 beautiful in toadstools ! Again, the secluded grounds of 

 a true lover of nature rise before me, and the Fly Agaric 

 grows freely beneath the spreading beech trees. The 

 owner, though accounted a matter-of-fact lawyer, goes 

 every morning to look upon the brilliant fungi, which 

 have put themselves under his protection. A professed 

 devotee of nature and poetry visits the place, and the 

 master shows his lovely fungi with as much pride as his 

 elm avenue and yew grove. He might with truth say 

 with Christina Rossetti : — 



" All caterpillars throve beneath my rule, 

 With snails and slugs in corners out of sight ; 

 I never marred the sudden curious stool, 

 That perfects in a night," 



But the eye of the stranger is blinded by conventional- 

 ities, and he passes the Agarics afterwards with a sneer, 



" Be careful not to upset Mr. s pet toad-stools." 



This plant is poisonous in England, and is used 

 for exterminating flies and vermin ; in other European 

 countries it is merely intoxicating, not poisonous, and is 

 used as an article of food in Kamschatka. This altera- 

 tion of quality with climate is not uncommon among 

 fungi. Many species which are deleterious here are 

 regular articles of food upon the continent, and the 

 Fuegians depend greatly upon some for sustenance which 



