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294 SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
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All of the Morels are safe and delicious. 
So also is Inky Coprinus, usually found on manure 
piles. The Beefsteak Mushroom grows on stumps — 
chieffy chestnut. It looks like raw meat and bleeds when 
cut. It is quite good eating. 
So far as known no black-spored toadstool is unwhole- 
some. 
The common Mushroom is distinguished by its general 
shape, its pink or brown gills, its white flesh, brown 
spores, and solid stem. 
SNAKES GOOD AND BAD 
Snakes are to the animal world what toadstools are to 
the vegetable world — wonderful things, ‘beautiful things, 
but fearsome things, because some of them are deadly 
poison. 
Taking Mr. Raymond L. Ditmars* as our authority, 
we learn that out of one hundred and eleven species of 
snakes found in the United States, seventeen are poi- 
sonous. They are found in every state, but are most 
abundant in the Southwest. 
These may be dived into Coral Snakes, Moccasins, and 
Rattlers. 
The Coral Snakes are found in the Southern States. 
They are very much like harmless snakes in shape, but 
are easily distinguished by their remarkable colors, 
“broad alternating rings of red and black, the latter bor- 
dered with very narrow rings of yellow.” 
The Rattlesnakes are readily told at once by the rattle. 
But the Moccasins are not so easy. There are two 
kinds : the Water Moccasin, or Cotton-mouth, found in 
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Louis- 
iana, and the Copperhead, which is the Highland, or 
*This article is chiefly a condensation of his pamphlet on 
“Poisonous Snakes of the United States,” and is made with his 
permission and approval. 
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