iiSCULENT I^UNGl GEE AT BRITAIN. 347 
guish them." Galen affirms them to have no peculiar 
property ; but Avicenna says, they are pre-eminent in 
breeding " grosse and melancholicke humours that they 
" trouble the stomacke, whether they be rosted under the 
embers or otherwise boiled in broth, and eaten with pepper, 
oyle, and vinegar." Vid. Park. Theat Bot. p. 1320. 
De Candolle, in his Essai sur les Proprietes Mklkalcs 
des Plantes, remarks, that all the species are wholesome 
and agreeable to the palate ; Tuber onoscJiatum and T. 
album being often substituted for the common species, and 
known to the Piedmontais by the names of Bianchetti and 
Rossetti. Persoon in his T?'aite corroborates this, and adds 
several additional details. 
The modes of cooking truffles are very numerous. They 
are dressed with champagne ; in potages ; in all kinds of 
ragouts ; in pates ; in pyes ; as stuffing to fowls ; and are 
made even into creaiSL Vid. Bulliard. By true epicures 
they are usually only roasted under the embers. In Pied- 
mont, according to Balbis, they are often eaten raw, as 
sallad ; particularly with snipes, which are scarcely valued 
unless accompanied with truffles. 
Truffles vary much in size ; common specimens are about 
3 inches in diameter ; but there are instances mentioned 
by Halle R, and others, of their weighing even fourteen 
pounds. As they increase in size, they often raise slightly 
the ground above them, which frequently cracks, and gives^ 
access to a species of fly, of a blue colour, which deposites 
its eggs in the fungus, and acts as a sort of guide to the 
truffle-hunter, A figure of this insect is given in the Lettres 
de M. DE BoRCH sur les Truffes du Piedmont. 
The reader will find in Bulliard, directions for formings 
a Truffiere. 
