ived
my first lessons in mushroom lore. My harvests, I need hardly say, were
not admitted to the house. The mushroom, or the bouturel, as we called
it, had a bad reputation for poisoning people. That was enough to make
mother banish it from the family table. I could scarcely understand
how the bouturel, so attractive in appearance, came to be so wicked;
however, I accepted the experience of my elders; and no disaster ever
ensued from my rash friendship with the poisoner.

As my visits to the beech clump were repeated, I managed to divide my
finds into three categories. In the first, which was the most numerous,
the mushroom was furnished underneath with little radiating leaves. In
the second, the lower surface was lined with a thick pad pricked with
hardly visible holes. In the third, it bristled with tiny spots similar
to the papillae on a cat's tongue. The need of some order to assist the
memory made me invent a classification for myself.

Very much later there fell into my hands certain small books from which
I learnt that my three categories were well known; they even had Latin
names, which fact was far from displeasing to me. Ennobled by Latin
which provided me with my first exercises and translations, glorified
by the ancient language which the rector used in saying his mass, the
mushroom rose in my esteem. To deserve so learned an appellation, it
must possess a genuine importance.

The same books told me the name of the one that had amused me so much
with its smoking chimney. It is called the puffball in English, but its
French name is the vesse-de-loup. I disliked the expression, which to my
mind smacked of bad company. Next to it was a more decent denomination:
Lycoperdon; but this was only so in appearance, for Greek roots sooner
or later taught me that Lycoperdon means vesse-de-loup and nothing else.
The history of plants abounds in terms which it is not always desirable
to translate. Bequeathed to us by earlier ages less reticent than
ours, botany has often retained the brutal frankness of words that set
propriety at defiance.

How far off are those blessed times when my childish curiosity sought
solitary exercise in making itself acquainted with the mushroom! 'Eheu!
Fugaces labuntur anni!' said Horace. Ah, yes, the years glide fleeting
by, especially when they are nearing their end! They were the merry
brook that dallies among the willows on imperceptible slopes; today,
they are the torrent swirling a t