One of the latest, and certainly the most charming, of the lamented W. Hamilton Gibson's works is Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms, and How to Distinguish Them. The only regret of the reader, who is also the owner, of the superb volume is that a cheaper edition does not put it within the reach of every caterer and housewife.

The page facing the Introduction is exquisitely illustrated by a collection of American mushrooms, and within the oval they enclose is an extract from the works of a celebrated English naturalist and botanist. Under the caption, The Spurned Harvest, we read - "Whole hundred-weights of rich, wholesome diet rotting under the trees; woods teeming with food, and not one hand to gather it; and this, perhaps, in the midst of poverty and all manner of privations and public prayers against imminent famine''

A few pages beyond this lament Mr. Gibson breaks forth with - " What a plenteous, spontaneous harvest of delicious feasting annually goes begging in our woods and fields ! "And again - "Gastronomically considered, the flesh of the mushroom has been proven to be almost identical with meat, and possesses the same nourishing properties."

A passing reference to our gastronomic chemist corroborates this statement: "Mushrooms are highly nitrogenous. Some kinds contain much fat or oil."

And yet both of our authors frankly admit the danger of amateur work in the selection and harvesting of the rich, delicious edible. Mr. Gibson's introductory chapter sets this before us so graphically that we are inevitably reminded of the heedless Syrian who "went out into the fields to gather herbs and gathered wild gourds his lapful and came and shred them into the pot of pottage, and as they were eating of the pottage one cried out, and said - 'O, thou man of God, there is death in the pot! ' "

Elisha neutralized the poison with a handful of meal. Mr. Gibson indicates atropine injected hypodermically, "the treatment to be repeated every half hour until one-twentieth of a grain has been given, or the patient's life saved."

And yet (again) the rules laid down by our enchanting author for distinguishing the harmful from the wholesome fungi would seem to be an effectual guard against the catastrophe pre-figured by the death's-head introduced into the frontispiece of "The Deadly Amanita." His "Rules for the Venturesome " are clear and emphatic.

1.   Avoid every mushroom having a cup or suggestion of such at base. The distinctly fatal poisons are thus excluded.

2.   Exclude those having an unpleasant odor, a peppery, bitter, or other unpalatable flavor, or tough consistency.

3.   Exclude those infested with worms or in advanced age or decay.

4.   In testing others which will pass the above probation, let the specimen be kept by itself, not in contact with, or enclosed in the same basket with other species.

He lays especial stress upon the danger-signal of the "poisoncup," which "may be taken as the cautionary symbol of the genus Amanita common to all the species. Any mushroom or toadstool, therefore, whose stem is thus set in a socket, or which has any suggestion of such a socket should be labelled 'poison.' But the cup must be sought for."

A secondary "sign " is the "veil which in the young mushroom originally connected the edge of the cup or pileus with the stem and whose gradual rupture necessarily follows the expansion of the cup until a mere frill or ring is left about the stem at the original point of contact." This sign is sometimes found in edible mushrooms, and is therefore only ominous when coupled with the poison-cup at the base of the stem.

We offer no apology for much dwelling upon the possible peril of indiscriminate mushroom gathering nor for a last extract from our author's introduction, which should reassure the excessively timid.

"Of the forty odd species which the writer enjoys with more or less frequency at his table, he is satisfied that he can select at least thirty which possess such distinct and strongly marked characters of form, structure, and other special qualities as to enable them by the aid of careful portraiture and brief description to be easily recognized, even by a tyro."

It is a pity, as the most thoughtless student of this subject must admit, that one of the most delicious viands served upon the table of the rich epicure and which might grace the cotter's board every day in the week if he would take the trouble to gather it, should be practically excluded from home bills-of-fare from one end of the country to the other, through ignorance of such simple tests as a child might master after a few lessons.