206 NEW TOKK STATE MUSEUM 



mon mushroo^i the only edible species seeks to separate it from 

 all others, and says " avoid all which have Tvhite gills and a hol- 

 low stem." This rule precludes the use of many mushrooms 

 which are just as good as the one it sustains, and at the same 

 time it is not definite enough to limit the selection to the one 

 intended. Another, thinking of the Delicious lactarius which 

 has an orange-colored juice, says " reject all such as have a white 

 milky juice." This rule forbids the use of several species of lac- 

 tarius that are no more harmful and scarcely less sapid than the 

 Delicious lactarius. Again we are told by some one who has in 

 mind the poisonous amanitas, to "discard all mushrooms that 

 have a warty cap or a membranous sheath at the bottom of the 

 stem." This would be a very good rule if we might add 

 to it the sentence, unless you know the species to be edible 

 and safe. The Orange mushroom, which is deemed an edible 

 species of first quality, has a membranous sheath at the base 

 of the stem, and the Tveddish amanita has a warty cap and 

 yet is not only harmless but very good, so that the rule which 

 would forbid the use of these species excludes more than is neces- 

 sary. The same may be said of those directions which require 

 the rejection of all mushrooms having a viscid cap or an acrid 

 taste or whose flesh on being broken quickly changes to a blue 

 color. And as to the old-fashioned silver spoon test, by which it 

 was thought that a silver spoon thrust among cooking mushrooms 

 would be quickly tarnished if they were poisonous and remain 

 bright if they were edible, that was long ago proved to be most 

 unreliable by a fatal experiment in which several persons lost 

 their lives because the cook put confidence it. We are, therefore, 

 forced to conclude that no abstract rule is at present known by 

 which the good can in every case be separated from the bad. 

 The only safe and reasonable way to do this is to learn to recog- 

 nize each species hy its own peculiar specific characters. It is in 

 this way that we recognize the useful and esculent species among 

 flowering plants, and it must be in this way that we select our 

 edible mushrooms. A little more care may be necessary in one 

 case than in the other, because of a closer resemblance in some 

 cases between good and bad mushrooms than between good and 

 bad flowering plants. The principle that is to govern in this 



