[Sidenote: =Absolute worthlessness of above tests=]
I once knew an aged dame who was accepted as a village oracle on this as well as other topics, such as divining, palmistry, and fortune-telling, and who ate and dispensed toadstools on a few of the above rules. Strange to say, she lived to a good old age, and no increased mortality is credited to her memory as a result of her generosity.
How are these popular notions sustained by the facts? Let us analyze them seriatim and confront each with its refutation, the better to show their entire untrustworthiness.
_Pleasant taste and odor_ (1) is a conspicuous feature in the regular "mushroom" (_Agaricus campestris_), and most other edible fungi, but as a criterion for safety it is a mockery. The deadly _Agaricus amanita_, already mentioned, has an inviting odor and to most people a pleasant taste when raw, and being cooked and eaten gives no token of its fatal resources until from six to twelve hours after, when its unfortunate victim is past hope. (See p. 68.)
The _ready peeling_ of the skin (2) is one of the most widely prevalent proofs of probation, and is often considered a _sufficient_ test; yet the Amanita will be found to peel with a degree of accommodation which would thus at once settle its claims as a "mushroom." Indeed, a large number of species, including several poisonous kinds, will peel as perfectly as the Campestris.
_The pink gills turning brown_(3) is a marked characteristic of the "mushroom" (_A. campestris_, Plate 5), and, being a rare tint among the fungus tribe, is really one of the most valuable of the tests, especially as it is limited by rules affecting other pink-gilled species.
_The stem being easily pulled out of the cap_ (4) applies to several edible species, but equally to the poisonous.
The notion that _edible mushrooms have solid stems_ (5) would be a very unsafe talisman for us to take to the woods in our search for fungus-food. Many poisonous species are thus solid--the emetic Russula, for example--while the alleged importance of the =morning specimens= (6) is without the slightest foundation.
The passage quoted here (7), or a statement to the same effect, was quite widely circulated in the newspapers a dozen or more years ago, in an article which bore all the indications of authoritative utterance, the assumption being that the poisonous mushroom would invariably give some forbidding token to the senses by which it might be discriminated.