Some other errors in the natural history of animals have been long and widely prevalent, but have no superstitions connected with them. It will be enough merely to mention them. It is a common but a purely erroneous belief that the goatsucker and the hedgehog suck the teats of cows lying in the field--the latter being persecuted on that account. The woodpecker is ruthlessly killed because of the injury which it is supposed to do to trees by pecking holes in the wood and causing them to rot. The woodpecker pecks only where the wood is already decayed, which it does in quest of insects and their larvæ, and by pecking out the decayed wood, prevents the gangrene from extending, thus doing good to the tree and not harm.
The popular errors regarding plants are not so numerous, so wide-spread, or so remarkable as those regarding animals; nor do they seem anywhere to have taken so firm a hold of the minds of any class of the people, if we except perhaps the popular ideas regarding mushrooms and toadstools. Many people imagine that all fungi, except 'the mushroom,' are poisonous. It is not uncommon to hear the question asked even by educated people concerning some _agaric_: 'Is it a mushroom or a fungus?'--a question which shews that neither the meaning of the one term nor of the other is known. Every mushroom is a fungus; and although the term _mushroom_ can never be applied to the minute fungi, such as blight, smut, mildew, and mould, it is very commonly applied to many of the larger kinds. Many fungi are not only not poisonous, but are wholesome and pleasant articles of food. Truffles and morels are edible fungi, and though they are found in England, they are not so common anywhere in Britain as in some parts of the continent of Europe. Some other species are also occasionally gathered and used in England; but in Scotland it may almost be said that none is ever gathered for use except the common mushroom (_Agaricus campestris_). Both in England and Scotland, however, far less use is made of the edible fungi than in France, Italy, Germany, and other continental countries, where they form a not inconsiderable part of the food of the people during summer and autumn; whilst with us, through ignorance and prejudice, they are allowed to rot and go to waste. It is proper to add, that of the larger kinds of fungi, many of the poisonous species are of the very group to which the common mushroom belongs; a group which possesses the same general form and structure with the common mushroom--a stalk surmounted by a cap, with gills on the under-side of the cap. Some excuse is therefore to be made for the general aversion prevalent in Great Britain to all kinds of fungi; and as long as we remain ignorant of the difference between the edible and the poisonous species, this aversion will naturally survive. But a wider diffusion of knowledge concerning the edible fungi is very desirable, and would enable many often to enjoy a cheap and agreeable repast.