Specimens of infected or decaying mushrooms preserved within a tightly closed box--and, we would suggest, duly quarantined--will at length reveal the imago forms of the voracious larvæ: generally a swarm of tiny gnats or flies, with an occasional sprinkling of small glossy black beetles, or perhaps a beautiful indigo-blue insect half an inch in length, of most nervous habit, and possessed of a long and very active tail. This insect is an example of the curious group of rove-beetles--_staphylinus_--a family of insect scavengers, many of whose species depend upon the fungi for subsistence.
Even the large woody growth known as "punk" or "touch-wood," so frequently seen upon decaying trunks, is not spared. A huge specimen in my keeping was literally reduced to dust by a single species of beetle.
Considering the prevalence of these fungus hosts, it is well in all mushrooms to take the precaution of making a vertical section through stem and cap, excluding such specimens as are conspicuously monopolized, and not being _too_ critical of the rest, for the over-fastidious gourmet will often thus have little to show for his morning walk. I have gathered a hundred specimens of fungi in one stroll, perhaps not a quarter of which, upon careful scrutiny, though fair of exterior, would be fit for the table. The fungus-hunter _par excellence_ has usually been there before us and left his mark (see page 135)--a mere fine brown streak or tunnel, perhaps, winding through the pulp or stem, where his minute fungoid identity is even yet secreted. But we bigger fungus-eaters gradually learn to accept him--if not too outrageously promiscuous--as a natural part and parcel of our _Hachis aux Champignons_, or our simple mushrooms on toast, even as we wink at the similar lively accessories which sophisticate our delectable raisins, prunes, and figs, to say nothing of prime old Rochefort!
In conclusion, lest these pages, in spite of the impress of caution with which they are weighted, should lead to discomfiture, distress, or more serious results among their more careless readers, it is well to devote a few lines to directions for medical treatment where such should seem to be required. To this end I quote a passage from an article in the _Therapeutic Gazette_ of May, 1893, from the pen of Mr. McIlvaine, whose many years' experience with gastronomic fungi entitles his words to careful consideration: