I took my prizes home, and determined to announce my great discovery to the world in an early issue of some scientific paper, fully assured that I had made a "great find." Before accomplishing this purpose, however, I thought I would consult my "oracle," "Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation"--a most beautiful and valuable entomological work, by-the-way, which should be in every boy's library. There, on page forty-two, behold my odorous specimen, true to life! And what does Harris say about him? "They are nocturnal insects, and conceal themselves through the day in the crevices and hollows of trees, where they feed upon the sap that flows from the bark. They have the odor of Russia-leather, and give this out so powerfully that their presence can be detected by the scent alone at the distance of two or three yards from the place of their retreat. This strong smell suggested the name Osmoderma, 'scented skin,' given to these beetles by the French naturalists." "Nocturnal" they may be, but that they are diurnal also I have many times proved. Almost any hot sunny day I am even now sure of my specimen upon a certain oozy cherry trunk near by, the presence even of one beetle being distinctly announced at a distance of ten feet. There are two common species of these beetles, the present insect being the _Osmoderma scabei_, as given by Harris. Mushroom Spore-prints The 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--always enthusiastically welcomed 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. But in a later stage this clear white fracture would have appeared speckled or peppered with gray spots, 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 becomes powdery by evaporation, and the puff-ball is now _ripe_, and intent only on posterity.