144 ON SOME EDIBLE FUNGI. 



feel surprised at their absence from our markets, while the Truffle and 

 Morell obtain at times most extravagant prices. During the present 

 summer a country gentleman, living remote from town and railway, has 

 assured me that his own kitchen, and the kitchens of many of his friends, 

 are kept with a supply of Helvellas for culinary purposes, from year to year. 

 In Sweden and Germany they are considered equal to the Morell, and are 

 known in the latter country under the name of Gemeine Morchel, or 

 Stamp/ Morchel. 



Truffles have at least the advantage of being possessed of many friends, 



who prize them so highly that they commonly 



/r^if^^m gi ye as much as sixteen shillings per pound 



for them. The common truffle of our market 



is Tuber ozstivum (the T. cibarium of some 



authors), but Berkeley enumerates eight 



others found in Britain — viz., T. brumale, 



macrosporum, hitumifiatum, ru/um, scleroneu- 



ron, nitidum, puberulum, and dryoplvilum. I 



am not prepared to affirm that these are all 



equally good ; indeed, I believe that they 



are not, and that in this instance the best kind is that which is best 



known. 



These fungi being subterranean in their habits, the ordinary method of 

 searching for mushrooms will not succeed in discovering them, and, 

 instead thereof, dogs are trained to hunt them out by the aid of that pecu- 

 liar odour which makes itself evident, even at the surface of the soil, to the 

 acute canine olfactory nerves. In some of the continental countries of 

 Europe, where truffles are found, pigs are employed as hunters. 



Efforts have been made to obtain crops of truffles by sowing truffle- 

 parings in a chalky soil,* but these efforts have only been partially success- 

 ful. In the present volume of the Technologist an account has already 

 appeared of another experiment in Truffle culture. 



In form and general appearance these fungi differ much from the 

 popular type. They look like rough, dark-coloured, warty nodules,- some- 

 times nearly as large as the fist, and in the interior mottled with a remote 

 resemblance to the section of a betel-nut, or a nutmeg. 



Truffles are doubtless far more common in calcareous districts than is 

 generally supposed. In England they are found chiefly on the downs of 

 Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Kent, but the ordinary truffles of the Parisian 

 markets are much larger and better flavoured than those found in Britain. 



The Red Truffle (Melanogaster variegatus) is not a truffle at all, but an 

 allied subterranean fungus, having somewhat the flavour, but is much 

 inferior. It is found in the neighbourhood of Bath and Bristol, and is 

 occasionally sold in the markets of those towns under the above name. 



* Ail interesting Paper on Oak Truffles, by M. de Gasparin, appeared in the 

 Technologist vol. ii., p. 17. 



