372 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
rics are more wholesome fresh than stale, and 
should therefore be prepared for the table as soon 
as possible after being collected. 
The intoxicating Siberian fungus or Fly Agaric 
(Agaricus muscarius, Fig. 39), so called because a 
decoction of it used 
to be employed asa 
fly poison, may be 
adduced as an illus- 
tration of the remark- 
able effects produced 
by some species of 
fungi, when growing 
in foreign countries. 
We have no experi- 
ence as yet, in this 
part of Europe, of 
any effects so extra- 
Fic. 39.—AGARICUS MUSCARIUS. ordinary being pro- 
duced by any of our native fungi, or even by the 
same species when growing in the British woods. 
It is acknowledgéd to be one of the most poison- 
ous species in this country ; but it does not ex- 
hibit its curious properties to the same extent 
here, as it does beyond the Ural Mountains. In 
European Russia, and Siberia, this fungus is to 
the inhabitants what opium and hemp are to the 
natives of India and China; cocoa to the Peru- 
