114 
Mycologia 
chewers, to which group may be added the snails, all dig clean 
passages and break their food into minute particles. The flies, 
on the other hand, when in the maggot stage liquefy the flesh of 
the mushroom, dissolving it by means of a special pepsin as do 
the bluebottle maggots of meat. 
The caterpillar and the maggots, as observed by Fabre, greedily 
devoured Boletus Satanas, but refused all species of Amanita, 
whether edible or poisonous; while the mild Lactaria deliciosa 
and the acrid Lactaria torminosa, the poisonous Pleurotus phos- 
phoreus and the edible Pleurotus Eryngii, proved equally attrac- 
tive to these insects. The author concludes that the selection of 
mushrooms by insects is no criterion for the human mycophagist. 
Then follows a very inaccurate and dangerous statement, to 
the efifect that no one was ever poisoned at Serignan by eating 
mushrooms because it was the custom to “ blanch ” them, or bring 
them to the boiling point in water with a little salt added, and then 
to rinse them a few times in cold water. The “poisonous” 
species mentioned as treated in this way are Armillaria mellea, 
Boletus Satanas, Lactaria sonaria, Amanita pantherina. Amanita 
muscaria, and Pleurotus phosphoreus ; some of which are entirely 
harmless, some are rendered harmless by boiling, and the rest 
contain as their active poisonous principle the alkaloid muscarin, 
which is soluble in hot water. If Amanita phalloides had acci- 
dentally come into the experiment, the conclusion would have been 
very different. Romell, of Sweden, doubted Entoloma lizndum 
and tried boiling it for five minutes and throwing the water 
away ; — he narrowly escaped death. 
Attention is called to Dr. Clark’s note on this subject in 
Mycologia for July, 1912, which closes with the following state- 
ment: “Amanita phalloides still preserves its toxic principle un- 
changed after being heated to boiling for some time ; in the dried 
■State its toxicity is not weakened after standing a year nor has 
it lost its poisonous properties after remaining dry for six years ; 
the poison is still held in the tissues of the mushroom after boiling 
with water. 
“ Therefore it is very ununse to spread broadcast the erroneous 
idea that all poisonous mushrooms may be rendered harmless by 
boiling with zvater and then zvashing repeatedly in cold water.” 
W. A. Murrill. 
