36 EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



upward in their receptacle, and it is well to have a 



special basket, arranged with one or two removable 



bottoms or horizontal partitions, which 



Hints to g^j-g ]jept in place by upright props 

 mushroom^ .,., ,. . ii 1 



gatherers withm, thus relievmg the lower layers 



of mushrooms from the weight of those 

 above them. Such a basket is almost indispensable. 

 Before preparing mushrooms for the table, the 

 specimens should be carefully scrutinized for a class 



of fungus specialists which we have 



Insects j^Q^ taken into account, and which have 

 infesting 

 mushrooms probably anticipated us. The mush- 

 room is proverbial for its rapid de- 

 velopment, but nature has not allowed it thus to 

 escape the usual penalties of lush vegetation, as wit- 

 ness this swarming, squirming host, minute grubs, 

 which occasionally honey-comb or hollow its entire 

 substance ere it has reached its prime ; indeed, in 

 many cases, even before it has fully expanded or 

 even protruded above ground. 



Like the carrion-flies, the bees, and wasps, which in 

 early times were believed to be of spontaneous origin 

 — flies being generated from putrefac- 

 History of tion, bees from dead bulls, and the mar- 

 fungus insects tial wasps from defunct "war-horses" 

 — these fungus swarms which so speed- 

 ily reduce a fair specimen of a mushroom to a melt- 

 ing loathsome mass, were also supposed to be the 

 natural progeny of the "poisonous toadstool." But 

 science has solved the riddle of their mysterious om- 

 nipresence among the fungi, each particular swarm 

 of grubs being the witness of a former visit of a ma- 



