[87] Roques fell in with two soldiers at St. Cyr, who had gathered and were in the act of carrying off twice the quantity of this fungus necessary to kill the regiment, when he interfered, and no doubt saved many lives in doing so. The soldiers, it appears, had mistaken the _Ag. necator_ for the _Hydnum repandum_, to which it bears some slight resemblance in colour, and in nothing else.
[88] The _converse_ of this remark by no means holds true; the _Amanita verna_, the _Am. phalloides_, the _Ag. semiglobatus_, _dryophilus_, and _muscarius_, though amongst the most deadly of this class of plants, do not change colour on being cut; the flesh of the first two is, moreover, of a tempting whiteness, like that of the common puff-ball, than which there is not a safer or a better fungus. “Omnino ne crede colori” is our only safe motto here.
[90] He was wrong here: the oak produces both the _Fistulina hepatica_ and the _Agaricus fusipes_, two excellent funguses, particularly the last, which, properly dressed or pickled, have not many rivals.
[91] As was known to the Greeks, ‘Prepare your funguses with vinegar, salt, or honey, for thus you will rob them of their poison,’ οὕτω γὰρ αὐτῶν τὸ πνιγώδες ἀφαιρεῖται.
[92] Vittadini, however, ate largely of this fungus, which he describes as very disagreeable, though it did not prove poisonous to him.
[94] In a whole family, cut off in the year 1843, at Lucca, by dining on some poisonous Boletuses, drawn and first described by Professor Puccinelli under the ominous name of _Boletus terribilis_, besides most extensive ulceration of the mucous coat of the intestines throughout a very considerable portion of their extent, together with injection of the vessels of the brain, the lungs were found congested, and the cavities of the heart distended, with coagula of blood.
[95] For a most interesting record of all the more recent poisonings from funguses in Italy, the reader may consult Professor delle Chiaje’s work on Toxicology. The following, the only one I shall give, is to be found in Vittadini’s excellent work on funguses:—