FUNGUS EATING. 
11 
the stem decurrent from the leaves). In the root-stock, 
however, which is very rich in (with potassium bichromate) 
clusters of minute globules, these globules amalgamated and 
altered their arrangement in such a way as at first to give 
the impression that the tannin had considerably diminished. 
(To be continued.) 
FUNGUS EATING.* 
BY W. B. GROVE, B.A. 
The test of an educated Englishman is his readiness to 
eat a well-cooked toad-stool. Observe, his “ readiness ” to 
eat, not his eating—and note also the “ well-cooked.” This 
apparent paradox is, after all, but a special instance of the 
self-evident theorem that superstition varies inversely as 
education. 
To recommend to a rustic, who has reached the ordinary 
high-water mark of agricultural instruction, that he should use a 
little of that vast store of food which rots at his very doors, is 
to call forth a stare of contemptuous amazement, or a smile 
of superior disdain. Omne ignotum pro horrifico. “What! 
eat them pisonous things ! It’s flyin’ in the face of natur’,” 
who created toad-stools, forsooth, merely to be kicked. 
A few countrymen have heard tell that “ furriners ” do 
not despise such food; but then “ furriners” devour all sorts 
of nasty things. In one or two parts of the Midland Counties, 
certain of these rural persons have actually dared to eat 
something other than the common mushroom. Its near ally, 
the Horse-Mushroom, is dignified in the northern part of 
Warwickshire, and perhaps elsewhere, under the title of the 
Champignon ; and is eaten by the Agamemnons and Hectors 
of the district, probably with secret trembling, but with a 
heroism worthy of another epic. The Champignon of cryp- 
togamic botanists is, of course, a widely different species; 
but, as these village wiseacres knew of only two names for 
edible fungi, and the mushroom had already appropriated the 
one, they had naturally no resource but to apply the term 
Champignon to the other. The two species are, however, so 
much alike, that the rustic eye probably differentiates the 
Horse-Mushroom merely by its greater size. A mushroom 
rarely exceeds five inches in diameter, while the Champignon 
may reach twelve or more ; the latter never has the bright 
* “An Elementary Text Book of British Fungi.” Illustrated. 
By W. B. Hay. London : Swan, Sonnenscliein; Lowrey and Co. 1887. 
