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EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



iant light suggesting the eyes of a huge puma or 

 tiger, I stood spell -bound with momentar)^ fear, until 

 I realized that the apparition was only a bugaboo 

 after all. Approaching in the darkness, I soon laid 

 hold of the rough head of the monster, and with a 

 strong pull at the mass of bark of which it was com- 

 posed, laid bare several square feet of blazing phos- 

 phorescence whose only hint had gleamed through 

 those two imaginary eyes, which proved to be holes 

 which had disclosed the hidden luminous fungus. 

 One authority describes a single mass of this phos- 

 phorescence as extending the entire length of a pros- 

 trate trunk thirty feet long. 



Hawthorne records bavins: made sood use of fox- 

 fire upon one occasion when, left in the lurch at 

 night by a canal-boat, he procured a phosphorescent 

 flambeau which effectually lighted his path for sev- 

 eral miles through the otherwise impassable woods. 



