PUFF-BALLS AND TOADSTOOLS. 157 



attention to some of them. In the first place, 

 let it be understood that this puff-ball is one 

 of the great Fungus family, wherein are all 

 toadstools, mushrooms, mildews, black-knot, po- 

 tato-blight, rusts, etc. 



The puff-ball is not a freak of nature, but 

 the seed-vessel of a low order of plants. When 

 it first appears as a small solid ball breaking 

 through the soil then the real plant may be 

 found running in white threads through the 

 ground. These grow with great rapidity, and at 

 the proper time they put out into the light this 

 tiny globe, that is fed from the roots and grows 

 with astonishing vigor and rapidity. In four or 

 five days it has reached an inch or two in di- 

 ameter, changed inside from a clear white pulp 

 to a sack of purple-brown powder. It has 

 shrivelled up at the base, burst open at the top, 

 broken away from its anchorage, become the 

 sport of the winds, breathing from its tattered 

 chimney little clouds of dust, until decay fin- 

 ishes its existence. All this has a meaning. 

 There is method in it from start to finish, and 

 it is the privilege of the human mind to inves- 

 tigate and understand it, in a measure at least. 

 If we breathe on a bit of glass and then force 

 the smoke of the puff-ball against it till there is 

 a little cloud on the glass, and place it under 



