126 BRITISH EDIBLE FUNGI. 



minced meat ; in all cases its succulency is such that 

 it furnishes its own sauce. 



An ordinary and expeditious method is to slice up 

 the Fistulina and fry it together with rump steak, to 

 which it furnishes a savoury addition. Of course it 

 may be fried and eaten by itself, but it gives more 

 satisfaction when simply treated as a sauce. 



XIX.— PUFF BALLS. 



OUR earliest acquaintance with the great puff ball 

 {Lycoperdon giganteum) was made in the country, 

 amongst the cottagers of an agricultural population. 

 Old and dried specimens, entire, or in parts, were 

 carefully preserved for use, in one of two ways, but 

 neither of them gastronomic. In those days it was 

 considered that a fragment of the woolly interior 

 mass, with its profusion of minute snuff-coloured 

 spores, was the best of all remedies to apply for the 

 staunching of blood in wounds. Elderly dames, who 

 in small villages acquire a reputation in the healing 

 art, preserved fragments year after year, for use in 

 cases of emergency, and the readiest and most 

 common application for a deep cut was to bind a 

 piece of " puff ball " over the wound, and allow it to 

 remain until healed. The other use was for stupefy- 

 ing bees when the natives had a design upon their 



