ditchers, and people employed in repair- 

 ing the banks without any of these sleep- 

 ers being found, where but a few weeks 

 before these birds were innumerable, this 

 theory has been generally abandoned, 

 and here their researches into this mys- 

 terious matter generally end in the com- 

 mon exclamation of 'What can become 

 of them !' 



"Some profound inquirers, however, 

 not discouraged by these difficulties, have 

 prosecuted their researches with more 

 success ; and one of these, living a few 

 years ago near the mouth of the James 

 River in Virginia, where the Rail or 

 Sora are extremely numerous, has (as I 

 was informed on the spot) lately discov- 

 ered that they change into frogs ; having 

 himself found in his meadows an animal 

 of extraordinary kind, that appeared to 

 be neither a sora or a frog, but, as he 



expressed it, 'something between the 

 two.' He carried it to his negro, and 

 afterwards took it home, where it lived 

 three days ; and in his own and his negro's 

 opinion it looked like nothing in this 

 world but a real Sora changing into a 

 frog ! . What farther confirms this grand 

 discovery is the well-known circumstance 

 of the frogs ceasing to hollow as soon as 

 the Sora comes in the fall." 



I will not attempt to describe the ter- 

 rible slaughter of this bird of which Wil- 

 son gives a vivid and interesting .account, 

 as it causes a feeling of repulsion to all 

 of those interested in the protection of 

 our birds. 



The range of the Sora is north to Hud- 

 son Ray in summer, south in winter to 

 South "America. It breeds in Kansas, 

 Illinois, Long Island and to the limit of 

 its range northward. 



Frank Morley Woodruff. 



FALLACIES OF RULES FOR DETERMINING EDIBLE 



MUSHROOMS. 



Each recurring season the soil of our 

 pastures, meadows and woodlands yields 

 a bounteous harvest of the various kinds 

 of parasol-shaped mushrooms known as 

 Agarics. This harvest would be gathered 

 as eagerly as the wild fruits and berries 

 but for the known fact that some kinds 

 are poisonous. While it is true that hun- 

 dreds of species are edible, a number of 

 others are unwholesome, and a few are 

 capable of producing fatal poisoning. 



To one who has not given especial 

 attention to these plants, the differences 

 between the various kinds are vague and 

 uncertain. In his perplexity the would-be 

 mycophagist turns to some code of rules 

 or signs for determining the differences 

 between the edible and poisonous species. 

 These so-called rules are not hard to find. 

 Almost every week during the summer 

 season they appear in one form or another 



in our daily papers and popular maga- 

 zines, and nearly as often we read of ill- 

 ness or death caused by eating poisonous 

 fungi. While direct evidence of cause 

 and effect is not easy to obtain, it is at 

 least probable that most of the fatalities 

 occur among those who have placed their 

 faith in some "newspaper botanist's" 

 code of rules. As an example of rules of 

 this kind, the following appeared recently 

 in a newspaper of wide circulation pub- 

 lished in one of our larger cities : 



"Rules which never fail to enable one to 

 recognize the poisonous mushroom : 



"i. The poisonous mushroom has a ring on 

 the stalk near the umbrella. 



"2. It has a cup into which the stalk fits. 



"3. The 'gills' or ridges on the under side 

 of the umbrella are white. 



"4. It grows singly. 



"5. It grows only on the ground and never 

 on trees or stumps. 



"A mushroom is not poisonous unless it 

 has all of the first three points mentioned." 



202 



