116 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



which the fungi return to the soil, when they pass into decay. Crop 

 after crop of fungi follow, each one receding from the centre and 

 passing outwards on to new soil, followed up at the same time by the 

 rampant grasses. The central grass will soon have used up the rich 

 deposits formed by the first crop of fungi, and, losing its rankness, 

 will allow of the growth of other meadow plants. Common daisy 

 and other plants will then spring up in the centre, and now and then 

 a few agarics will appear, and other tribes of fungi, now enabled to 

 vegetate in consequence of the refreshment the soil has received from 

 the grass, — the soil being charged with the spawn of various species, 

 waiting only the conditions necessary to their growth. Thus the 

 interior of the ring becomes a mixture of thin grass, meadow and 

 heath plants, and various fungi ; and while this has been taking place, 

 the ring of rich and rank grass has been following the outer ring of 

 fungi, luxuriating in the soil which each succeeding crop deserts, and 

 thus extending, by a steady though slow process, the dimensions of the 

 ring itself. In addition also to the suitability of the soil for grass 

 when it has become unfit for fungi, the latter retain the potash and 

 phosphorus of the soil in a collective form for the nourishment of the 

 grass, and take possession of new soil beyond that they previously 

 occupied. The fungi and the grass are then pitched in battle one 

 against the other, — the fight is unequal and the grass conquers ; and 

 thus, what it does not gain by the voluntary desertion of the soil by 

 the fungi, it accomplishes by overgrowing and choking them, — con- 

 tinually advancing from within outwards, feeding as it extends itself, 

 upon the remains of its fallen foe. 



In the garden of Gilbert White, in the valley at Selboiurne, was 

 one of these rings, which had occupied the same spot for six suc- 

 cessive years, and perhaps longer ; but for that period it had been 

 annually observed, hovering over the green sod on which the old 

 man's feet had often trod, like a fairy oblation to the departed natu- 

 ralist. Perhaps the circumstance of the fungi being destroyed before 

 they attain perfection, as would naturally be the case on a lawn, may 

 sufficiently account for the ring above mentioned remaining of the 

 same diameter for several seasons. When they occur on hill sides, 

 the lower part of the circle is usually open, and sometimes it happens 

 that, owing to the new crop of fungi which sometimes springs up in 

 the centre, a second ring of very rank grass appears within the 

 the larger one, and forms in this way a very beautiful object. Such 



