of all our mushrooms. When it prepares to make its appearance by
lifting the fissured earth, it is a handsome ovoid formed by the outer
wrapper, the volva. Then this purse gently tears and the jagged opening
partly reveals a globular object of a magnificent orange. Take a hen's
egg, boil it, remove the shell: what remains will be the imperial
mushroom in its purse. Remove a part of the white at the top, uncovering
a little of the yolk. Then you have the nascent imperial. The likeness
is perfect. And so the people of my part, struck by the resemblance,
call this mushroom lou rousset d'iou, or, in other words, yolk of egg.
Soon, the cap emerges entirely and spreads into a disk softer than satin
to the touch and richer to the eye than all the fruit of the Hesperides.
Appearing amid the pink heather, it is an entrancing object.

Well, this gorgeous agaric (Amanita caesarea, SCOP.), this food of the
gods the maggot absolutely refuses. My frequent examinations have
never shown me an imperial attacked by the grubs in the field. It needs
imprisonment in a jar and the absence of other victuals to provoke the
attempt; and even then the treacle hardly seems to suit them. After the
liquefaction, the grubs try to make off, showing that the fare is not
to their liking. The Mollusk also, the Arion, is anything but an ardent
consumer. Passing close to an imperial mushroom and finding nothing
better, he stops and takes a bite, without lingering. If, therefore, we
required the evidence of the insect, or even of the Slug, to know which
mushrooms are good to eat, we should refuse the best of them all. Though
respected by the vermin, the glorious imperial is nevertheless ruined
not by larvae, but by a parasitic fungus, the Mycogone rosea, which
spreads in a purply stain and turns it into a putrid mass. This is the
only despoiler that I know it to possess.

A second amanita, the sheathed amanita (Amanita vaginata, BULL.),
prettily streaked on the edges of the cap, is of an exquisite flavor,
almost equal to the imperial. It is called lou pichot gris, the
grayling, in these parts, because of its coloring, which is usually an
ashen gray. Neither the maggot nor the even more enterprising Moth
ever touches it. They likewise refuse the mottled amanita (Amanita
pantherina, D. C.), the vernal amanita (Amanita verna, FRIES) and the
lemon-yellow amanita (Amanita citrina, SCHAEFF.), all three of which are
poisonous. In short, whether it be to us a deli