"TOADSTOOLS" 377 



countless roads. They meet at the arranged point 

 which yesterday no one could have foretold. Their 

 infinities of little pile up into an infinitely great, a 

 dome like that of St. Paul's, but reared on a single 

 central column. On the under-side it is fretted with 

 deep grooves with walls as slender as a barb from 

 a bird's feather, and deep in the grooves are placed 

 millions on millions of highly elaborated bodies, the 

 germs of future fungi. It is the miracle of Aladdin's 

 palace, performed by the million every brooding 

 autumn night. 



We have not the hardihood to dine on fungus 

 except when we can get a basket of the one pink- 

 gilled, easily skinned species which, under the name 

 of mushroom, we lift from its fungus class into a 

 position of special honour. Yet in fact there are tons 

 of food just as good as the mushroom among these 

 other fairy palaces. In the dank grass where the 

 mushrooms grew are umbrella-like champignons 

 which we could surely pick without an atom of 

 doubt. Among the bracken gleam greenish yellow 

 caps which, being turned over, reveal a pin-holed 

 sponge instead of the usual gills. Drop it quickly. 

 A thing so remote from Agaricus campestris as this 

 must be not merely poisonous to the palate but 

 even dangerous to the touch. Not so. This half- 

 pound boletus would make for us, if only we had 

 the courage to cook and eat it, a dish superior to 

 mushroom. They eat it in countries where they 

 deem the mushroom poisonous, and the Italians 

 exiled to this land of fogs carry away the dainty 

 by the handkerchief-full. But be it known that 

 there are five or six boleti and only two of them 



