28o EDIBLE MUSHROOMS 



floating away from beneath its golden cap, the -eager 

 breeze taking such jealous care of the continual 

 shower that our eyes fail to perceive a hint of it. 



Do you doubt it ? You need wait but a few mo- 

 ments for a visible demonstration of the fact in a 

 pretty experiment, which, when once observed, will 

 certainly be resorted to as a frequent pastime in lei- 

 sure moments when the toadstool or 

 Catching mushroom is available. 

 the spores Here is a very ordinary-looking spec- 



imen growing beside the stone steps 

 at our back door perhaps. Its -top is gray, its gills 

 beneath are fawn -colored. We -may shake it as 

 rudely as we will, and yet we shall get no response 

 such as the Puff-ball will give us. But let us lay 

 it upon a piece of white paper, gills downward, on 

 the mantel, and cover it with a tumbler or finger- 

 bowl, so as to absolutely exclude the least admission 

 of air. At the expiration of five minutes, perhaps, 

 we may detect a filmy pinkish -yellow tint on the 

 paper, following beneath the upraised border of the 

 cap, like a shadow faintly lined with 

 A white. In a quarter of an hour the 



spore=portrait tinted deposit is perceptible across the 

 room, and in an hour, if we carefully 

 raise the mushroom, the perfect spore-print is revealed 

 in all its beauty — a spore -tint portrait of the un- 

 der surface of the mushroom — a pink -brown disk 

 with a white centre, which indicates the point of con- 

 tact of the cut stem, and white radiating lines, rep- 

 resenting the edges of the thin gills, many of them 

 as fine and delicate as a cobweb. 



