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these raole runs until a year after at least, and surely all destruction of grass 

 and weeds by the mole has been restored by that time by the changing seasons. 

 ■Where then is the pabulum for the funguses which the mole was stated to have 

 formed ? The grass has grown greener, and all dead matter has been taken up by 

 living growth. Mr. Smith had found the Affui'icus arvensis growing in rings 

 ■where there was no sign of a mole hill anywhere near. He generally found the 

 soil of the rings much harder than the rest of the field. A friend of his from 

 Scotland had told him that fairy rings were common in Orkney, but the mole 

 was unknown. "When Mr. Lees said it was love that made the mok go round 

 as well as the world, he had in his mind probably the statement of Ovid that 

 the world was once indigestaguc moles (oh ! oh ! and applause). 



Ml-. Flavell Edmunds humerously alluded to the expectation of his 

 friends around him that there would be a battle as the inevitable result of the 

 meeting of his friend Lees and himself, and assured him that it was with 

 reluctance that he rose to say anything against the exceedingly clever and 

 well arg\ied theory which Mr. Lees had laid before them. As a theory it was 

 a taking one, and he should have been glad to adopt it, but it appeared that 

 the facts were against it. His own observations, as well as the more 

 systematic and extensive observations of Mr. Harrison and others, were whoUy 

 at variance with the conclusions of their friend Lees. The moJecular theory, 

 as it had been wittily styled, was in the first place, as their friend had 

 admitted, wholly contradicted by the case of Ireland : he believed two 

 things were generally accepted, first, that Ireland has plenty of fairy 

 rings, and nest that it has no moles. On neither point, however, could 

 he speak from observation. As regards this district it was not so as he 

 had examined a great number of instances of fairy rings, and had observed a 

 still greater number of mole works, but had never found them together. AVithin 

 a couple of miles from the place where they were sitting he could show them 

 meadows where the mole-tracks are abvindant, but there are no fairy rings ; and 

 other pasture-fields where fairy rings are to be seen in all stages and states, 

 from the mere patch of dark grass up to the curve, the semicircle, and the 

 complete ring, with various kinds of fungi growing upon the ring and nowhere 

 else in the field, yet not a mole-track anywhere near, or any sign that there 

 ever was one. Notwithstanding the argument of their friend, he felt that 

 neither the connection between the fairy rings and the mole, nor even the 

 alleged circular direction of the mole's workings, can be regarded as proved. 

 In almost every instance he had found the mole to work pretty nearly in a 

 straight line. Occasionally Talpa seems to change his mind for some reason, 

 and "swerves from the direct forthright," but it is generally a return towards 

 the ditch from which he had begun his mining operations, although in many cases 

 the plan, whatever it was, like too many of our own, was never completed 

 (applause). 



Dr. Bull then said that the present year had been so unfavourable foi 

 the development of " Fairy rings," that they were pretty much in the same posi- 



