cious dish or a deadly
poison, no amanita is accepted by the grubs. The arion alone sometimes
bites at it. The cause of the refusal escapes us. It were vain, speaking
of the mottled amanita, for instance, to allege as a reason the presence
of an alkaloid fatal to the grubs, for we should have to ask ourselves
why the imperial, the amanita of the Caesars, which is wholly free from
poison, is rejected no less uncompromisingly than the venomous species.
Could it perhaps be lack of relish, a deficiency of seasoning for
stimulating the appetite? In point of fact, when eaten raw, the amanitas
have no particular flavor.

What shall we learn from the sharper-flavored mushrooms? Here, in the
pinewoods, is the woolly milk mushroom (Lactarius torminosus, SCHAEFF.),
turned in at the edges and wrapped in a curly fleece. Its taste is
biting, worse than Cayenne pepper. Torminosus means colic producing.
The name is very suitable. Unless he possessed a stomach built for the
purpose, the man who touched such food as this would have a singularly
bad time before him. Well, that stomach the vermin possess: they
revel in the pungency of the woolly milk mushroom even as the spurge
caterpillar browses with delight on the loathsome leaves of the
euphorbiae. As for us, we might as well, in either case, eat live coals.

Is a condiment of this kind necessary to the grubs? Not at all. Here,
in the same pinewoods, is the "delicious" milk mushroom (Lactarius
deliciosus, LIN.), a glorious orange-red crater, adorned with concentric
zones. If bruised, it assumes a verdigris hue, possibly a variant of the
indigo tint peculiar to the blue-turning boletes. From its flesh laid
bare by being broken or cut ooze blood-red drops, a well-defined
characteristic peculiar to this milk mushroom. Here the violent spices
of the woolly milk mushroom disappear; the flesh has a pleasant taste
when eaten raw. No matter: the vermin devour the mild milk mushroom with
the same zest with which they devour the horribly peppered one. To them
the delicate and the strong, the insipid and the peppery are all alike.

The epithet 'delicious' applied to the mushroom whose wound weeps tears
of blood is highly exaggerated. It is edible, no doubt, but it is coarse
eating and difficult to digest. My household refuses it for cooking
purposes. We prefer to put it to soak in vinegar and afterwards to use
it as we might use pickled gherkins. The real value of this mushroom is
largely overr