370 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
in which we lie stretched on the funeral bier, sen- 
sible to the weeping of friends, aware of the last 
screw being fixed in the coffin, and the last clod 
clapped down upon us in the churchyard, and are 
yet unable to move a hand ora lip for our own 
deliverance. When slowly burnt, this fungus has 
long been employed for stupifying bees, and thus 
robbing their hives of the honey with impunity. 
Experiments, with the same species, have also re- 
céntly been made on dogs, cats, and rabbits, and 
similar effects have invariably been found to ensue. 
When the fumes of the burning fungus are slowly 
inhaled, they gradually produce all the symptoms 
of intoxication, followed first by drowsiness, and 
then by perfect insensibility to pain, terminating, 
if the inhalation be continued, in vomiting, con- 
vulsions, and ultimately in death. 
The qualities of fungi seem to vary with the 
climate in which they have grown ; for many 
species which in this country are considered highly 
poisonous, on account of their intensely acrid quali- 
ties, and avoided as such, are eaten with impunity 
on the Continent. Mr. Berkeley mentions his 
having been informed by a gentleman of great 
acuteness and observation, that in some town of 
Poland, where he was detained as a prisoner, he 
amused himself with collecting and drying the 
various fungi that grew within its walls, amongst 
