INTRODUCTION 3 



ent elaboration, I have been favored with a numerous 

 and ahnost continuous correspondence upon mush- 

 rooms, including letters from every 



interest "in State in the Union, to say nothing of 



mushrooms Canada and New Mexico, evincing the 

 wide -spread interest in the fungus 

 from the gustatory point of view. The cautious 

 tone of most of these letters, in the main from neo- 

 phyte mycologists, is gratifying in its demonstration 

 of the wisdom of my position in this volume, or, as 

 one of my correspondents puts it, " the frightening of 

 one to death at the outset while extending; an invita- 

 tion to the feast." " Death was often a consequence 

 of toadstool eating," my friend continued, " but I 

 never before realized that it was a certain result with 

 any particular mushroom, and to the extent of this 

 information I am profoundly thankful." 



While, then, from the point of view of desired popu- 

 larity of my book, the grim greeting of a death's-head 

 upon the frontispiece might be consid- 



Caution at ered as something of a handicap, the 

 the threshold author confesses that this attitude is 

 the result of " malice prepense "' and 

 deliberation, realizing that he is not offering to the 

 " lay public," for mere intellectual profit, this scientific 

 analysis of certain fungus species. Were this alone 

 the raison d'etre or the logical outcome of the work 

 — mere identification of edible and poisonous species 



the grewsome symbol which is so conspicuous on 



two of my pages might have been spared. But when 

 it is remembered that with the selected list of escu- 

 lent mushrooms herein offered is implied also an in- 



