THE EDIBLE BOLETUS. 107 



yet it may be as well to have alluded to it, in order' 

 to guard the novice against experimenting with 

 species, which, to him, are doubtful, or unknown. We 

 have for ourselves been addicted to eating a vast 

 number of different kinds of fungi for forty years, 

 and never suffered a moment's inconvenience from 

 the habit, but it must be remembered that we have 

 eaten nothing which we did not know, or which had 

 not a favourable reputation. 



XVI— THE EDIBLE BOLETUS. 



HOWEVER delightful it might be theoretically to be 

 able to read a book of this kind without fear of en- 

 countering technical names, it is practically impos- 

 sible to avoid them altogether, except by inventing 

 combinations equally as bad and equally as strange, 

 without the compensation of being accurate. Organ- 

 isms such as fungi which have excited no interest in the 

 popular mind, have not acquired local names, and as all 

 have been commonly regarded as dangerous and un- 

 canny, no one has taken the trouble to examine them 

 or attempt to discover whether there are any features 

 whereby one kind can be discriminated from another. 

 Yet even the rural school urchin, who is well up in the 

 distinctions between a green-finch and a linnet, or a 

 buttercup and a daisy, could just as readily dis- 



