The Life of the Fly 



but it is coarse eating and difficult to digest. 

 My household refuses it for cooking purposes. 

 We prefer to put it to soak in vinegar and 

 afterwards to use it as we might use pickled 

 gherkins. The real value of this mushroom is 

 largely overrated thanks to a too-laudatory 

 epithet. 



Is a certain degree of consistency required, 

 to suit the grubs: something midway between 

 the softness of the amanitae and the firmness 

 of the milk-mushrooms ? Let us begin by ques- 

 tioning the olive-tree agaric or luminous mush- 

 room {Pleurotiis phosphoreiis, BATT.) , a mag- 

 nificent mushroom coloured jujube-red. Its 

 popular name is not particularly appropriate. 

 True, it frequently grows at the base of old 

 olive-trees, but I also pick it at the foot of the 

 box, the holm-oak, the plum-tree, the cypress, 

 the almond-tree, the Guelder-rose and other 

 trees and shrubs. It seems fairly indifferent to 

 the nature of the support. A more remarkable 

 feature distinguishes it from all the other 

 European mushrooms: it is phosphorescent. 

 On the lower surface and there only, it sheds a 

 soft, white gleam, similar to that of the Glow- 

 worm. It lights up to celebrate its nuptials 

 and the emission of its spores. There is no 

 question of chemist's phosphorus here. This 

 418 



