( SS9 ) 
XXVII. — Descriptions of the Esculent Fungi 
of Great Britain, with Observations, 
By Robert Kaye Greville, Esq. F. R. S. E. 
M.W.S. &c. 
(Read mh December 1822.) 
Great Britain is the only country in Europe in 
which, with the exception of two or three species, the 
Fungi are looked down upon with contempt and aversion ; 
nor have its inhabitants profited of late, by the knowledge, 
that they possess most of those species which supply a con- 
stant resource to thousands of their continental neighbours. 
If we go back to the earliest European writers on Na- 
tural History, we find mention invariably made of a num- 
ber of kinds employed as food in France, Italy, and Ger- 
many. The old descriptions of Fungi are indeed unintel- 
ligible, and they are frequently merely enumerated as 
Fungus esculentus primus^ secundus, &c. ; but the number 
thus given, shews them to have been extensively used, and, 
we have reason to conclude, long before authors arose to 
notice them. At present, they form a regular article of 
diet throughout the greater part of Europe, and not merely 
