_Robertii Sphæria_ (Vol. iii., p. 398.).--Any of your readers who are
curious in natural history will find, in the _Pharmaceutical Journal_,
vol. ii. p. 591., a very full description of this extraordinary
production, by Dr. Pereira. It is used as a medicine by the Chinese, by
whom it is called the "summer-plant-winter-worm," and who attribute to
it great cordial and restorative powers. The mode of employing it is
curious. A duck is stuffed with five drachms of the insect fungus, and
roasted by a slow fire; when done, the stuffing is taken out, the virtue
of which has passed into the duck, which is to be eaten twice a day for
eight or ten days. In the same work, vol. iv. p. 204., Dr. Pereira gives
a further account of the moth on whose larva the fungus grows.