FUNGI. 373 
vians ; and tobacco to the inhabitants of Europe 
and North America. The craving for narcotic 
indulgences, so natural to the human race, has, 
among the Kamtschatkans and Koriacs, found its 
gratification in an object so low in the scale of 
nature as a common toadstool. These races are 
so dreadfully degraded, that they personify this 
fungus under the name of Mocho.Moro, as one of 
their household deities, somewhat like the Goddess 
Siva of the Hindu Thugs. If they are urged by 
its effects to commit suicide, murder, or some 
other dreadful crime, they pretend to obey its 
commands ; and, to qualify themselves for pre- 
meditated assassination, they have recourse to 
additional doses of this intoxicating product of 
decay and corruption. 
This plant, around which such a lurid interest 
gathers on account of its debasing associations, is 
by no means rare in this country; in fact, it ap- 
pears to be very generally distributed throughout 
the whole of the temperate zone. In the High- 
lands of Scotland, and the northern districts of 
England, it is very common and abundant, par- 
ticularly in woods of fir and birch, where its tall 
white stem and rich orange scarlet cap, studded 
with white scaly warts, frequently of portly dimen- 
sions, form a beautiful contrast to the green carpet 
of moss from which it springs, and the draperies 
