Boston Mycological Club. 
Bulletins Nos. 17 and 18. (Issued December, 1901.) 
Hollis Webster, Cor. Sec'y-, P. O. Box 21, Cambridge, Mass. 
Numerous requests for opinions in regard to some recent books on 
mushrooms may conveniently be answered by reference to the following- 
reviews. The first appeared in the American Kitchen Magazine, the 
others in Rhodora, The Journal of the New England Botanical Club. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
One Thousand American Fungi. By Charles Mcllvaine and Robert K. 
Macadam, pp. 704, $12.00. Bowen, Merrill Co., Indianapolis, Ind. 
Within its splendid bulk, “ sumptuous ” is perhaps the publishers’ usual 
adjective, the book contains a preface, in which the author refers to his 
labors for twenty years in testing the edible qualities of all toadstools that 
came his way, and to his desire to put the results of his experience, cer¬ 
tainly the widest of any mycophagist that ever lived, at the service of all 
lovers of mushrooms ; an introduction which sets forth valuable advice 
for the protection of the novice, and briefly expounds the nature of toad¬ 
stools, and the way they are classified ; instructions as to collection and 
study ; a valuable key to the abbreviations of the authors of species ; a 
text embodying descriptions of one thousand species systematically ar¬ 
ranged, with notes of the author’s experience with each; numerous 
recipes for preparation and cooking; a useful — in fact, indispensable 
glossary; and various indices : in all over seven hundred pages, which, 
as bound, tip the scale at an even eight pounds. Interspersed are some 
excellent half-tones, many less excellent colored illustrations, and numer¬ 
ous cuts, making in all nearly two hundred “ plates.” 
In spite of its unwieldiness the book is a helpful addition to the works 
of reference available for amateurs, so many of whom are being blindly 
led to the study of mushrooms. Its helpfulness is due to the fact that it 
contains a greater number of descriptions and figures of our American 
toadstools than have before been collected in one volume, and to the 
various carefully made diagrams illustrative of points in structure and 
classification which must be mastered before any attempt is made at iden¬ 
tification of species. The elucidation of generic characteristics by means 
of parallel series of outline drawings, elaborated from the plan in Worth¬ 
ington Smith’s “ Clavis Agaricinorum ” is well done, though it makes 
prominent the loss of clearness due to the latter day departure from 
Fries’s simpler arrangement, which was rather more intelligible to a 
beginner, even if unsatisfactory to modern systematists. Further help is 
promised in the preface from simplification of the technical language of 
the descriptions ; but it may be questioned whether this does not some¬ 
times cause a regrettable lack of precision. 
Evidence of rather mechanical and undigested compilation is shown in 
the handling of the keys introduced under some of the genera. They 
seem to have been taken without change from the Reports of the New 
York State Botanist, and consequently do not give clues to a number of 
species included, which are thus in danger of being overlooked. It is to 
be regretted that the author did not make good kej-s for all the genera, 
and curtail the unnecessary length of many of his notes, in which, owing 
