July, 1892. 
THE HAPPY FUNGUS-HUNTER. 
159 
of British Fungi,” in 148 pages, with twenty-four coloured 
plates, in which especial prominence was given to the edible 
species. The book was unfortunately complicated by an 
attempt (necessary, perhaps, at that day,) to give elementary 
instruction also in the use of terms and in the classification 
of the fungi, as well as by descriptions of the more common 
poisonous species. Now he returns to the charge, in a 
volume entitled “ British Edible Fungi,” with 287 pages and 
plates containing coloured figures of upwards of forty species. 
Here, wisely we think, he eschews all reference to the 
poisonous forms. The would-be fungus-eater cannot learn 
too soon that he is not concerned at all with the multitudes 
of kinds whose culinary properties are either unknown, 
or known to be deleterious. It is his task to learn to 
recognise, one by one, in the same way as he learns to recog¬ 
nise his cousins and his aunts, the species which the 
experience of others has approved. This task Dr. Cooke 
helps him to perform successfully by a series of exceedingly 
careful descriptions, which the figures greatly assist. The 
descriptions are very full, and though couched in untechnical 
language, seem to be such as should convey a correct impres¬ 
sion to any person capable of appreciating accurately the 
values of words. 
Besides this, there are a large number of recipes for 
cooking fungi, “ some old and some new, but all practical.” 
Many of these have been tried and approved in previous 
years at the famous annual dinners of the Woolliope Club, at 
Hereford, where mycophagy has always been made a feature 
of the banquet. Dr. Cooke vindicates his right to speak 
as one that has authority on this subject, by showing that, out 
of the 200 British species which are fairly available for 
domestic purposes, he has personally experimented with sixty- 
eight, and survived to tell the tale. 
The book is interspersed with anecdotes of fungus-eating 
and collecting, and with many a hint intended for the removal 
of the long-standing fallacies about mushrooms, which are 
continually cropping up in one’s experience. Such fallacies 
are—that general rules can be given for distinguishing edible 
from poisonous species, that no fungus growing on or under 
trees can be wholesome, that any species which will “ peel ” 
is safe, that all bright-coloured ones are deadly, as well 
as that strangest but most persistent fallacy of all—that the 
fungi which are exposed for sale on the market stalls of this 
country are all of one species, called the “ common 
mushroom.” As a matter of fact, more than half of those 
which are brought to market during the “ mushroom season” 
at the end of summer, belong to the “ horse-mushroom,” 
