20 A PLAIN AND EAST ACCOUNT 



branaceous, with acute edges, and the spores are white. 

 The volva, on breaking up, remains attached to the 

 pileus in fragments resembling warts. Of the twelve 

 species found in this country, many are poisonous, and 

 one is especially deserving of notice from its extraor- 

 dinary application abroad. This species, the Fly Agaric 

 (Amanita muscaria), has a bright scarlet or reddish 

 umber, pileus studded with warts of a dirty white or 

 yellowish tint (Plate 1). The stem is bulbous, con- 

 taining cottony threads. It is found most commonly 

 in birch woods, and not very plentifully in Britain. 

 A decoction of this fungus has been employed as a fly- 

 poison ; whence its vulgar name. 



M. Roques, in his work on Esculent Fungi, says dis- 

 tinctly that this plant has not its poisonous properties 

 modified by any climate. The Czar Alexis lost his life 

 by eating of it, and yet it has been affirmed that in 

 Kamtschatka " it is used as a frequent article of food/' 

 And we have been informed that it is cooked and eaten 

 in Russia, albeit it is also on record that several French 

 soldiers ate of it within the confines of the Russian 

 dominions, and became very ill. In Siberia it supplies 

 the inhabitants with the means of intoxication similar 

 to that produced by the " haschisch " and "majoon" 

 of the East. The fungi are collected during the sum- 

 mer months, and hung up to dry in the open air, or they 

 are left to dry in the ground, and are collected afterwards. 

 When the latter course is pursued, they are said to 

 possess more powerful narcotic properties than when 

 dried artificially. The juice of the whortleberry in 



