The Life of Jean Henri Fabre 



What fun I had in that delightful spinney! I 

 returned to it many a time after my first find; 

 and here, in the company of the Rooks, I received 

 my first lessons in mushroom lore. My harvests, I 

 need hardly say, were not admitted to the house. 

 The mushroom, or the Bouturel, as we call it, 

 had a bad reputation for poisoning people. That 

 was enough to make mother banish it from the 

 family table. I could scarcely understand how the 

 Bouturel, so attractive in appearance, came to be so 

 wicked; however, I accepted the experience of my 

 elders ; and no disaster ever ensued . from my rash 

 friendship with the poisoner. 



As my visits to the beech-clump were repeated, 

 I managed to divide my finds into three categories. 

 In the first, which was the most numerous, the 

 mushroom was furnished underneath with little 

 radiating flakes. In the second, the lower surface 

 was lined with a thick pad pricked with hardly 

 visible holes. In the third, it bristled with tiny 

 spots similar to the papilla? on a cat's tongue. The 

 need of some order to assist the memory made me 

 invent a classification for myself. 



Very much later there fell into my hands cer- 

 tain small books from which I learnt that my three 

 categories were well known; they even had Latin 

 names, which fact was far from displeasing to me. 

 Ennobled by Latin which provided me with my 

 first exercises and translations, glorified by the an- 

 cient language which the rector used in saying his 

 mass, the mushroom rose in my esteem. To de- 

 60 



