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 



