Insects and Mushrooms 



'That a poison! The wolf's bread !'^ he 

 said, patting the plump boletus with his hand. 

 *What an idea ! It's beef-marrow, sir, regular 

 beef-marrow!' 



He smiled at my apprehensions and went 

 away with a poor opinion of my knowledge in 

 the matter of mushrooms. 



In the baskets aforesaid, I find the ringed 

 agaric {Arynillaria mellea, fries), which is 

 stigmatized as valde venenatus by Persoon,^ 

 an expert on the subject. It is even the mush- 

 room most frequently made use of, because of 

 its being so plentiful, especially at the foot of 

 the mulberry-trees. I find the Satanic boletus, 

 that dangerous tempter; the belted milk-mush- 

 room {Lactarius zonarius, BULL.), whose 

 burning flavour rivals the pepper of its woolly 

 kinsman; the smooth-headed amanita {Ama- 

 nita leiocophala, D. c), a magnificent white 

 dome rising out of an ample volva and fringed 

 at the edges with floury relics resembling flakes 

 of casein. Its poisonous smell and soapy after- 



^The boleti are known hereabouts by the generic name 

 of pan de hup, or wolf's bread. The people use them in- 

 discriminately for cooking-purposes, after removing the 

 tubes on the under side, which are easily separated from 

 the rest of the mushroom. — Author's Note. 



'Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1770-1836), a Dutch 

 naturalist, author of various works on fungology. — Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



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