FIG. I FAIRY-RING IN THE GROUNDS OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT 



OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE FAIRY-RING MUSHROOM. 

 By Frederick V. Coville. 



ON almost any of the older lawns in Washington may be seen 

 crescents, half-rings, or complete rings of luxuriant dark 

 green grass. If one asks the cause of it, the opinion usuall}^ 

 advanced is that the ring marks the location of some former 

 flower-bed, once heavily fertilized, now replaced by turf. If one sug- 

 gests that in such a case the darker area should present the form of a 

 solid circle instead of a mere ring, the author of the flower-bed ex- 

 planation becomes somewhat dubious, but is by no means convinced 

 of his error. 



The same rings and crescents have been known from the earliest 

 times in the rich green pasture turf of Great Britain and the Con- 

 tinent, and the peasant people of Europe long held the belief that 

 these rings marked the places where the fairies had their midnight 

 frolics — that they formed the circus rings, as it were, of the fairies. 

 With the springing up of the modern tendency toward scientific in- 



