BOOK XXII. xLvi. 92-94 



XLVI. Among the things which it is rash" to eat sfiishrooms 

 I would incliide mushrooms, as although they make '^^^1°°^ 

 choice eating they have been brought into disrepute 

 by a glaring instance of murder, being the means 

 used to poison the Emperor Tiberius Claudius by 

 his wife Agrippina, in doing which she bestowed upon 

 the world, and upon herself in particular, yet another 

 j)oison— her own son Nero. Some of the poisonous 

 mushrooms are easily recognized by their being of a 

 pale-red colour, of a putrid appearance and of a 

 leaden hue inside ; the furrows of the striated parts 

 are mere chinks.'' with a pale rim all round the edge. 

 Not all the poisonous kinds are like this, and there 

 is a dry sort, similar to the genuine mushroom, 

 which shows as it were white drops on the top, 

 standing out of its outer coat. The earth in fact 

 produces first a matrix for this purpose, and after- 

 wards the mushroom itself in the matrix, Hke the 

 yoke inside tlie ^^^g ; and the baby mushroom is 

 just as fond of eating its coat as is the chick. The 

 coat cracks when the mushroom first forms ; presently, 

 as the mushroom gets bigger, the coat is absorbed 

 into the body of the foot-stalk, two heads rarelv ever 

 springing from one foot. The first origin and cause 

 of mushrooms is the sUme and the souring juice of 

 the damp ground, or often of the root of acorn-bearing 

 trees,'' and at first is flimsier than froth, then it grows 

 substantial Hke parchment, and then the mushroom, 

 as I have said, is born. How chancy a matter it is to 

 test these deadly plants ! ** If a boot nail, a piece of 



loss of -Jerae, or it should perhaps be deleted as being due to 

 dittography. See XVI. § 33. 



^ With Mayhoffs reading : " How many signs — different for 

 different people — there are to test these deadly plants ! " 



359 



VOL. VI. N 



