EDIBLE FUNGI. 163 



mischief arose from ignorance had that family known the 

 marks that distinguish between the wholesome and the 

 poisonous kinds this would never have taken place. li ever 

 there was a case in which ignorance was bliss, surely this is 

 it. A short time ago, I accompanied a scientific frier d in a 

 foray among the funguses, which we made with a special 

 view to the improvement of our intended repast, and was 

 on that occasion struck with the elaborate precautions 

 which seemed to be necessary to observe in discriminating 

 the good from the bad. It would almost seem that 

 Nature had purposely contrived a labyrinth of ingenious 

 stumbling-blocks to guard this mysterious product from 

 the insatiable appetites of mankind ; and so it came to 

 pass after all, my good friend who really seemed well 

 up in the subject, and who found at every turn some 

 well-known test of wholesomeness or otherwise to guide 

 him in the specimens we collected wound up the day by 

 nearly poisoning a member of my family : for he had, it 

 appears, mistaken Boletus flavus, a violent poison, for 

 the very similar but wholesome and excellent Boletus 

 luteus the only difference being that the pores of the 

 one are somewhat smaller and less angular than those 

 of the other. Surely, in this instance, knowledge (and 

 it was not in his case a little knowledge either) was a 

 dangerous thing. 



" But still it may be said that there are species the 

 characters of which are sufficiently well-defined, and that 



