HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER. 
15 
The total number of esculent species enumerated is 221 ; 
but some of these are such as few people would care to 
tackle. Yet I have myself eaten two of the most unlikely, 
Polyporus squamosus (young, of course), and Lcictarius turpis, 
and though it must be confessed they are not nice enough to 
tempt a dying anchorite to eat, yet they form a respectable 
alternative to starvation. Many of the species mentioned are 
also rare ; but still one can eat them when they are met with, 
and therefore it is as well to include them. The number of 
poisonous species is only fifty-three, so that the chances 
against one’s being poisoned may be reckoned about four 
to one. Of course the vast mass of fungi are such as either 
offer nothing to eat or, if eaten, exert no active influence 
whether harmful or the reverse. 
The enquirer who takes this book as his guide will find a 
great many of his fungopliobic superstitions disappear before 
the author’s treatment of his subject. It is not many 
evenings since, in the centre of Birmingham, two little 
parties of five and four sat down to a fungus supper, the 
courses of which consisted entirely of toad-stools, cooked 
according to the recipes there given. Those who partook 
of them are still alive, and anxious to repeat the 
experiment. If only Mr. Hay would strike out those 
false or redundant parts in which he travels beyond his 
knowledge, such as his random etymology and the note 
on p. 43, which is exactly sixteen years behind the times, 
and would confine his remarks to that which he has actuallv 
himself investigated, this book, rebaptised and reduced to 
about half its size, would then become an essential element in 
the library of every fungus-eater. 
HISTORY OF THE COUNTY BOTANY OF WORCESTER 
BY WM. MATHEWS, M. A. 
(Continued from page 288 .) 
“ Stourbridge and its Vicinity,” by William Scott, has 
been previously referred to in these pages. It was published 
in 1832. The introductory remarks to the Botanical Chapter 
will be found at p. 539 ; they are followed, at p. 540, by “ a 
select descriptive Botanical Catalogue.” Many of the species 
enumerated therein are stated by the author to have been 
“ honoured by an insertion in the ‘Midland Flora.’” 
