188 The Beneficial and Injurious Influences of Fungi. 



very desirous for change of diet to feed upon the birds of the 

 mountaines ; and such as dwell upon the hills or champion 

 grounds do long after sea fish ; many that have plenty of 

 both do hunger after the earthy excrescences called Mushromes ; 

 whereof some are very venomous and full of poyson, others 

 not so noisome ; and neither of them very wholesome meate, 

 wherefore for the avoiding of the venomous quality of the 

 one, and that the other which is less venomous may be discerned 

 from it, I have thought good to set forth their figures with their 

 names and places of growth.' * 



' Divers esteeme those for the best which ggrow in medowes 

 and upon mountaines and hilly places, as Horace saith, lib. 

 ser. 2. Satyr 4 : 



pratensibus optima fungis. 



Natura est, alijs, male creditur. 



The medow Mushroms are in kind the best. 

 It is ill trusting any of the rest. 



Galen affirms that in their Temperature and Virtues, they 

 are very cold and moist, and therefore to approach unto a 

 venomous and muthering facultie, and ingender a clammy, 

 pituitous and cold nutriment if they be eaten. To conclude, 

 few of them are good to be eaten, and most of them do suffocate 

 and strangle the eater. Therefore I give my advice unto those 

 that love such strange and new fangled meates, to beware 

 of licking honey among thornes, least the sweetnesse of the 

 one do not countervaile the sharpnesse and pricking of the 

 other.' 



Parkinson divides the group into Fungi esculenti (32 sp.) 

 and Fungi pernitiosi (32 sp.), finishing with ' Thus have I 

 shewed you all the kindes and sorts of Mushromes, both 

 wholesome and dangerous.' 



This was written in 1640, so we may assume that at least 

 sixty-four species of Fungi were then known and recognised. 



Carolus Clusius, who was born at Antwerp in 1526, published 

 his book entitled ' Rariorum Plantarum Historia,' in which he 

 gives an appendix on ' Mushromes,' observing that they grew 

 more abundantly in moist weather after thunder. It is left 

 for the present day mycologist to explain the cause of this. 

 Massee thinks that the nitric acid generated in the atmosphere 

 by the thunder is brought down by the rain thus accelerating 

 the growth of fungi. The same cause is given for the curdling 

 of milk and souring of beer in thundery weather. 



That thunder exercised some peculiar power in producing 



* Gerard's Herbal, 2nd edition, by Thos. Johnson, 1633. With all 

 respect to my fellow townsmen, I venture to think that had he lived in 

 this twentieth century, he would probably be standing before you as the 

 President of the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union, and expressing similar 

 thoughts to those I have the honour of lay before you. 



Naturalist. 



