justly celebrated because of its long and distinguished list of
victims. Agrippina used it to poison the Emperor Claudius. Among
others, the Czar Alexis of Russia died of eating it.

"I have heard that some people find it only a narcotic, and it is
said that in Siberia there are actually Amanita debauchees who go
on prolonged tears by eating the thing. It may be that it does not
affect some people as it does others, but in most cases that
beautiful gossamer veil which you see about the stem is really a
shroud.

"The worst of it is," he continued, "that this Amanita somewhat
resembles the royal agaric, the Amanita caesarea. It is, as you
see, strikingly beautiful, and therefore all the more dangerous."

He ceased a moment, while we looked in a sort of awe at the
fatally beautiful thing.

"It is not with the fungus that I am so much interested just now,
however," Kennedy began again, "but with the poison. Many years
ago scientists analyzed its poisonous alkaloids and found what
they called bulbosine. Later it was named muscarin, and now is
sometimes known as amanitin, since it is confined to the mushrooms
of the Amanita genus.

"Amanitin is a wonderful and dangerous alkaloid, which is absorbed
in the intestinal canal. It is extremely violent. Three to five
one-thousandths of a gram, or six one-hundredths of a grain, are
very dangerous. More than that, the poisoning differs from most
poisons in the long time that elapses between the taking of it and