36 MYCOPHAGY. 



the reports of his perceptive organs. In a matter of 

 mere seeing or smelling we would follow the Patago- 

 nian savage rather than the Pope, or the President of 

 the Koyal Society. 



In short, like other doubtful characters, let not fun- 

 guses be trusted and admitted to our tables until our 

 doubts be removed. But caution need not be so exces- 

 sive as to shut us up endlessly in insular prejudice. In 

 the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' edited by Dr Lindley, we 

 are astonished to read such a sentence as this : " We 

 admit that we throw away many sorts that are excel- 

 lent, and that we thus deprive our palate of much gra- 

 tification, and perhaps that those in common use are 

 inferior to those that are rejected. But we err on the 

 safe side ; the mushroom, chantarelle, champigny, morel, 

 and truffle, are enough for luxury; and we trust that 

 the peasantry of Great Britain will never be brought to 

 the condition of Italian lazzaroni." 



This looks very like " bunkum " to flatter John Bull. 

 The question is not one of " luxury" for the favoured 

 few who can afford to pay dearly for morels and truffles, 

 but of food for the many. Ought we to throw away 

 many sorts of funguses on which the peasantry of other 

 nations feed and fatten ? It is a mere popular myth 

 that "John Bull" chiefly lives on animal food. Poor 

 fellow ! he is, as we have formerly shown, very much 

 of a vegetarian, to which " his poverty and not his will 

 consents." And when by-and-by we enlighten him as 

 to the chemical constituents of the edible funguses of 

 Britain, we are sanguine that no l Gardeners'-Chronicle'- 

 inspired contempt for the lazzaroni will keep him from 

 coveting an article of food which in savour is not merely 

 like his national beefsteak, but, to a greater extent than 

 anything vegetable, is actually composed of the same 

 elementary substances. If an Italian or a Kussian pea- 

 sant commit wonderfully few mistakes as to the quality 

 of fungi, can nothing be done to educate our people so 

 that it shall be safe for them to make these productions 



