Insects and Mushrooms 



crumbled slab, something like toffee. Caught 

 in this matrix, grubs and pupa? perish, in- 

 capable of freeing themselves. Analytical 

 chemistry has proved fatal to them. The con- 

 ditions are quite different when the attack is 

 delivered on the surface of the ground. Grad- 

 ually absorbed by the soil, the excess of liquid 

 disappears, leaving the colonists free. In my 

 dishes, it collects indefinitely, killing the inhabi- 

 tants when it dries up into a solid layer. 



The purple boletus (Boletus purpureus, 

 fries), when subjected to the action of the 

 maggots, gives the same result as the Satanic 

 boletus, namely, a black gruel. Note that both 

 mushrooms turn blue if broken and especially 

 if crushed. With the edible boletus, whose 

 flesh invariably remains white when cut, the 

 product of its liquefaction by the vermin is a 

 very pale brown. With the or'onge, or im- 

 perial mushroom, the result is a broth which 

 the eye would take for a thin apricot-jam. 

 Tests made with sundry other mushrooms con- 

 firm the rule : all, when attacked by the mag- 

 got, turn into a more or less fluid mess, which 

 varies in colour. 



Why do the two boleti with the red tubes, 

 the purple boletus and the Satanic boletus, 

 change into a dark gruel? I have an inkling 



411 



