306 STtje tartoen's Stotg. 



throughout the summer and fall, if we but knew 

 them. They go to waste through our inability 

 to distinguish the false from the true. The 

 Gaul would have trained hogs and dogs to find 

 them ; the Italian would subsist on them in the 

 dried state during winter. The silver spoon is a 

 good though not always a safe test to distin- 

 guish them ; better are the sweet odor and flavor, 

 often resembling those of the chestnut, which 

 characterize many of the edible species. Still, 

 fungi are dangerous playthings for those not 

 thoroughly experienced in gills and pilei. It is 

 perhaps better that we are restricted to the field 

 mushroom, than which no native species is more 

 delicious, and in identifying which it is almost 

 impossible to be mistaken unless one be color- 

 blind, and can not distinguish pink from orange 

 or saffron. 



Brightest of the autumn flowers to enliven 

 the lanes and road-sides are the purple asters, 

 with the ever-surging sea of golden-rods, the 

 rambling, canary-colored toad-flax (Linaria vul- 

 garis), and an occasional pale-yellow evening 

 primrose. Fields, meadows, and pastures are 

 hoary with everlastings, and everywhere wave 

 the white corymbs of the wild carrot. Here and 

 there a stony field is sentineled with mulleins, on 

 whose spires the goldfinches have congregated. 



