340 
Mil GREVILLE ON THE 
as a resource in times of scarcity, but as a delicacy. It is 
therefore not a little extraordinary, that we, who have be- 
fore our eyes several esteemed species in the utmost profu- 
sion, should neglect the whole, except the common Mush- 
room, the Truffle, and the Morelle. On the Continent, 
it is a common practice to eat various fungi in a raw 
state, which, it is said, renders them more nutritious. 
ScHW.EGRicHEN mentions this expressly, in an extract of a 
letter quoted by Persoon. — " In travelling through Ger- 
many and Austria, I observed the peasants in the vicinity 
of Nuremberg, where I lived a part of the summer, to eat 
raw mushrooms seasoned with anise-seed and carroway-seed, 
along with their black bread. Being then employed on the 
study of cryptogamous plants, I resolved to try the effect 
of this kind of food on my own person. 
" I therefore imitated these people, and succeeded so com- 
pletely, that, during several weeks, I ate nothing but bread 
and raw fungi, and drank nothing but water. Instead of 
finding my health affected, I rather experienced an increase 
cf strength. I preferred those species which had neither a 
bad flavour nor a disagreeable smell, and which had a 
tolerably firm consistence ; as. Boletus esculentiis^ B. rnfits, 
Agaricus campestris, Ag. procerus, Clavaria coralloides, 
&c. 
" I have observed that fungi, if moderately used, are 
very nourishing, but that they lose their good qualities by 
culinary preparation, which deprives them of their natural 
taste."'— Persoon TraUt sur les Chompignoiis comestibles, 
p. 157. 
Of all people I am acquainted with, the Russians seem 
to employ them most exclusively as aliment; and on this 
subject, Professor Pallas, in his Voyage dans plusicurs 
Provinces de V Empire de la Uussie, vol. i, p. 65, has given 
us a few interesting details, which are so much to the pur- 
