222 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Or thej were attributed, as already intimated, to unseen personal 

 agencies: 



" This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet : he begins at curfew, and walks 

 till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes 

 the hare-lip ; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth." 



I quote this latter rather also to show the accuracy and compass 

 of Shakespeare's vision. How many people, not farmers, have seen 

 wheat whitened by the blight! And that is exactly the description, 

 white not " to the harvest," but whiter still to sterility and death. 



But leaving aside all microscopic forms which may or may not 

 be incidentally touched upon everywhere, we may turn our atten- 

 tion next to cryptogamic plants which are positively defined. The 

 sudden springing of mushrooms, for instance, especially at night, 

 so unreal and yet realities withal, made their creation a suitable 

 trick for Prospero : 



" You demi-puppets that 

 By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, 

 Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime 

 Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice 

 To hear the solemn curfew." 



The " green sour ringlets on the fields whereof the ewe not bites " 

 are " fairy rings." The same thing appears in the speech of Dame 

 Quickly; 



" And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, 

 Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring; 

 The expressure that it bears, green let it be. 

 More fertile-fresh than all the field to see." 



Fungi, toadstools, mushrooms, and so forth, are fructifications 

 only; the vegetative part of the plants permeates the soil, feeds on 

 its organic matter, and spreads almost equally, we may assume, in 

 all directions from the point of starting. When now this vegetative 

 growth has accumulated energy to form fruit, the sporocarps or 

 mushrooms rise all around at the limits of activity; hence, in a circle. 



The fungi cut a small figure in Shakespeare — i. e., considering 

 their numbers and almost omnipresence. But we must remember 

 that they were at that time studied by few, their significance and in- 

 terest little suspected. They formed part of the realm of the world 

 unseen; they came and went at the instance of powers unknown, 

 mostly personified, imaginary, a misty population, the thought of 

 which kept for long ages the childhood of oui* race in terror. Shakes- 

 peare saw the forms of unstudied plants, everything visil)le to the 

 naked eye, and really omitted very little. He speaks of mosses — 

 the lichens were included with them — chiefly as indicative of age 

 in the object in which they rest: 



