s cancellatus_) is said to produce cancerous sores if
handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is
therefore named the "lattice stinkhorn." The toad was popularly
thought to [374] impersonate the devil; and the toad-stool, pixie
stool, or paddock stool was believed to spring from the devil's
droppings.

The word Mushroom may have been derived from the French _Moucheron_,
or _Mousseron_, because of its growing among moss. The chief
chemical constituents of wholesome Mushrooms are albuminoids,
carbo-hydrates, fat, mineral matters, and water. When salted
they yield what is known as catsup, or ketchup (from the
Japanese _kitchap_). The second most edible fungus of this
nature is the Parasol Mushroom (_Lepcota procera_).

Edible Mushrooms, if kept uncooked, become dangerous: they cannot
be sent to table too soon. In Rome our favourite _Pratiola_ is
held in very small esteem, and the worst wish an Italian can express
against his foe is "that he may die of a _Pratiola_." If this species
were exposed for sale in the Roman markets it would be certainly
condemned by the inspector of fungi.

Fairy rings are produced by the spawn, or mycelium, beginning to
germinate where dropped by a bird or a beast, and exhausting the
soil of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potash, from the centre
continuously outwards; whilst immediately within the enlarging ring
there is constantly a band of coarse rank grass fed by the manure of
the penultimate dead spawn. The innermost starved ground remains
poor and barren. In this duplicate way the rings grow larger and
larger.

Our edible Mushroom is a _Pratella_ of the subgenus _Psalliota_,
and the _Agaricus campestris_ of English botanists. In common
with the esculent Mushrooms of France it contains phosphate of
potassium--a cell salt essentially reparative of exhausted nerve
tissue and energy.

The old practice of testing Mushrooms with a silver [375] spoon,
which is supposed to become tarnished only when the juices are of
an injurious quality (i.e., when sulphur is developed therein under
decomposition) is not to be trusted. In cases of poisoning by
injurious fungi after the most violent symptoms may have been
relieved, and the patient rescued from immediate danger, yet great
emaciation will often follow from the subsequent effects of the
poison: and the skin may exhibit an abundant outbreak of a
vesicular eruption, whilst the health will remain perhaps
permanently injure