MUSHROOM SPORE-PRINTS 137 
boy, to whom it is always a challenge for a kick, 
and a consequent demonstration of smoke worthy 
of a Fourth -of -July celebration. 
A week ago this glistening gray bag, so free 
with its dust-puff at the slightest touch, was solid 
in substance and as white as cottage cheese in the 
fracture. 
But in a later stage this clear white fracture 
would have appeared speckled or peppered with 
gray spots, and the next day entirely gray and 
much softened, and, later again, brown and appar- 
ently in a state of decay. But this is not decay. 
This moist brown mass becomes powdery by 
evaporation, and the puff-ball is now ripe, and in- 
tent only on posterity. 
Each successive squeeze as we hold it between 
our fingers yields its generous response in a puff 
of brown smoke, which melts away apparently 
into air. But the puff-ball does not end in mere 
smoke. This vanishing purple cloud is com- 
posed of tiny atoms, so extremely minute as to re- 
quire the aid of a powerful microscope to reveal 
their shapes. Each one of these atoms, so imma- 
terial and buoyant as to be almost without gravi- 
ty, floating away upon the slightest breath, or 
even wafted upward by currents of warm air from 
the heated earth, has within itself the power of re- 
producing another clump of puff-balls if only fort- 
une shall finally lodge it in congenial soil. These 
