INTRODUCTION 1 5 



other vegetation in imbibing oxygen and exhaling 

 carbonic acid, after the manner of animals. It is not 

 surprising, therefore, that the analogy should be still 

 further emphasized by the discrimination of the pal- 

 ate, many kinds of fungi when cooked simulating the 

 taste and consistency of animal food almost to the 

 point of deception. 



But in America the fungus is under the ban, its 

 great majority of harmless or even wholesome ed- 

 ible species having been brought into 



Popular popular disrepute through the contami- 

 fungi nation, mostly, of a single small genus. 



In the absence of special scientific 

 knowledge, or, from our present point of view, its 

 equivalent, popular familiarity, this general distrust 

 of the whole fungus tribe may be, however, consid- 

 ered a beneficent prejudice. So deadly is the insid- 

 ious, mysterious foe that lurks among the friendly 

 species that it is well for humanity in general that 

 the entire list of fungi should share its odium, else 

 those " toadstool " fatalities, already alarmingly fre- 

 quent, might become a serious feature in our tables 

 of mortality. 



But the prejudice is needlessly sweeping. A little 



so-called knowledge of fungi has often proven to be 



a " dangerous thing," it is true, but it 



Fungus food is quite possible for any one of ordinary 

 for all intelligence, rightly instructed, to mas- 

 ter the discrimination of at least 2. few 

 of the more common edible species, while being thor- 

 oughly equipped against the dangers of deadly vari- 

 eties, whose identification is comparatively simple. 



