The flesh of the _Amanita_ is not yellow. Yet Vicat speaks of poisonings produced by the _Yellow Amanita_. "I had much difficulty," says this physician, "in saving two families of Lausanne, poisoned through eating a very small quantity of mushrooms, which the father in the one case, and the mother in the other, had mistaken for _Agarici Cæsarei_, though they were both esteemed great connoisseurs, and especially in this species; nor had they been once deceived for upwards of thirty years, until they indulged themselves in this delicious but deceitful dish." These poisonings could have been occasioned only by the _Amanita_. Some varieties exist, in which the under surface of the pileus is yellow, but the flesh is white. To one of these varieties Vicat's anecdote probably refers. Thus, the _Amanita formosa_ of Persoon has pedicel, pileus, and warts of the pileus, of a citron yellow. It is but a variety of the _Amanita muscaria_. The _Amanita umbrina_ of the same botanist (the _Agaricus pantherinus_ of De Candolle) has an olive-coloured pileus; its surface, like that of _Amanita muscaria_, is covered with white scales. The _Amanita solitarius_ is distinguished by the size of its umbilical cap,--sometimes depressed in the centre,--which is furnished with a great number of white or pale brown scales; when fully developed, it measures from thirty to forty centimetres in diameter. The pedicel is bulbous, with a membranous ring, white as snow, clasped around it; at the base it is clothed in pellicles, the remains of its scaly volva. The flesh is firm, thick, and white. You rarely meet with more than two or three individuals in the same locality; hence its name of _solitarius_. Bulliard speaks of the flesh as good to eat, when cooked on a gridiron, and seasoned with fresh butter, salt, and pepper. It is possible. But as it is so easily confused with the poisonous species, the author of the "Histoire des Champignons" would have done better to prohibit its consumption, whether eatable or not. We may now turn to the method adopted by Dr Vicat to save the lives of the two families at Lausanne, who, as we have seen, were poisoned by partaking of the _Amanita_:-- * * * * * I dissolved, he says, six grains of tartar emetic in a litre of water, and from time to time administered a spoonful to my patients; moreover, I made them swallow floods of warm water, sweetened with a little honey,--that is, a large tea-spoonful of honey to a cupful of water.