There are a number of other esculent species of fungi as easily available and enjoyable as those already described, but the scheme of the volume would hardly warrant their inclusion. Even though the element of danger is practically eliminated, so far as the identification of the foregoing fungi is concerned, it is still wise for the amateur to proceed with caution until he has absolutely _learned_ the individual species in their various forms of development.
Our 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 perhaps 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 indeed pleasantly familiar, though a specimen 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 entrée of "mock omelet."
The old-time country physician gathered its powdery bag and carefully preserved it for another purpose, 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.
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. In this condition, sliced and fried, it would have proven a veritable delicacy upon our table, quite suggesting an omelet in consistency and flavor, and in size also, if perchance we had been favored with one of the larger specimens, which frequently approaches the dimensions of a football.
But in a later stage this clear white fracture would have appeared speckled or peppered with gray spots (see page 271), and the next day entirely gray and much softened, and, later again, brown and apparently in a state of decay. But this is not _decay_. This moist brown mass by evaporation becomes powdery, and the Puff-ball is now _ripe_, and preparing for posterity.