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UR common dusty Puff-ball, floating its faint 

 trail of smoke in the breeze from the ragged flue 

 at its dome-shaped roof as from an elfin tepee, or per- 

 haps enveloping our feet in its dense purple cloud as 

 we chance to step upon it in the path, is familiar 

 to every one. To the mycophagist connoisseur, on 

 the alert for every delectable fungus morsel for his 

 fastidious appetite, the Puff-ball is in- 

 Puff-ball deed pleasantly familiar, though a spec- 

 spore-clouds imen in such a powdery stage as the 

 above is apt to bring only regrets that 

 its discovery has been thus delayed, for in its earlier 

 firm white stage he knows it at his table as a most 

 delicate entree of " mock omelet." 



The old-time country physician gathered its pow- 

 dery bag and carefully preserved it for another pur- 

 pose, its spongy, dusty contents having been a time- 

 honored remedy as a styptic, or for the arrest of 

 hemorrhage from wounds. But by no class of the 

 community perhaps is it so enthusiastically welcomed 

 as by the small boy, to whom it is always a challenge 

 for a kick and a consequent demonstration of smoke 

 worthy of a Fourth-of-July celebration. 



