94 
see, are certified by Messrs. Plowright, Trimmer, Miles, and 
myself. 
I will conclude what I have to say on this part of my subject 
by a quotation from Badliam. Speaking of the dangerous indi- 
viduals which exist in the family of the fungi, he says, “ We 
shoidd apply the same rules of discrimination here as elsewhere ; 
have we not picked potatoes for our table out of the deadly family 
of Solana? selected with care the garden from the fool’s parsley? 
and do we not pickle gherkins, notwithstanding their affinity to 
the Elat&iiuTfi momoTdjicuvi, which would poison us were we to 
, eat it ? Ought we not, rather, in a matter of such importance, to 
apply ourselves to the task of discriminating them accurately, tlian 
permit idle rumours of its impracticability, or even of real difficulty, 
to deter us from the undertaking? Assuredly nature, who has 
given to biutes an instinct by which to select their aliment, has 
not left man without a discriminative power to do the same with 
equal certainty : nor does he use his privileges to their full, nor 
employ his senses as he might, when he suffers himself to be 
surpassed by the brute animals in their diagnosis of food.” 
As to properties, fungi may be divided into edible, medicinal, 
and poisonous, and it is to the first alone I confine my remarks. 
Being so highly nitrogenous, and containing so large a pro- 
portion of phosphates, fungi, if edible, are higldy nutritious. I 
have already stated that in Southern Europe they are very largely 
consumed, and Berkeley states that many savage tribes, the 
Euegians for instance, adopt certain species as their staple food 
during many months. 
In this country what is called the common mushroom [Agaricm 
campestri-s), and the horse mushroom {Agaricus arvensis), the 
champignon {Marasmius oreades), the morel {Morchella esculenta), 
and the truffle {Tuber cibarivm), are the fungi which are almost 
exclusively eaten by either the public or the epicure ; but besides 
these there are others growing in this county which are not only 
edible, but which if better known would soon be highly esteemed, 
not only as luxuries, but as valuable food. 
Mr. W. Smith figures in his chart twenty-nine varieties, of 
which he says, “ all and every one are delicious objects of food, 
full of aroma and flavour, most of them abundant, and easily 
recogmsable when seen.” Dr. Badliam enumerates thirty species 
