238 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



be anything from a yard or less to a hundred 

 yards in diameter, and not infrequently it is broken 

 by what seems to be, and, in fact, is, its coalescence 

 with another ring. Throughout the greater part 

 of its extent the ring is occupied by grass much 

 greener and more vigorous than that of the rest 

 of the pasture, but generally on its outer edges 

 the grass is brown, feeble, and occasionally quite 

 dead. Then at a favourable season, like the 

 present, around the extreme outside edge of this 

 brown part there comes into being, with the most 

 startling suddenness, a circle of mushrooms, grow- 

 ing side by side with a strangely artificial-looking 

 regularity. The pileus, or cap, of each at first is 

 of a brownish ochre in colour, becomes paler with 

 age, and fades to a rich cream before it finally 

 dies away. 



How account for a vegetable family endowed 

 with so curious a geometrical habit? How the 

 ancestral wisdom explained it, every child of, at 

 any rate, the last generation knew perfectly. The 

 fairies who lived in subterranean dwellings had 

 certain well-marked habits. On moonlight nights 

 they issued forth and engaged in dances on the 

 green, linking hand-in-hand and tripping it round 

 a circle. Very naturally, indeed, the grass refused 

 to grow on a circle trodden by such elfish feet, 

 and no less naturally a plant which formed the 

 favourite throne of the elf a plant itself of elfish 

 nature, since it grew without seed selected that 

 particular place for its development. In short, 

 the ring mushrooms grew out of the footprints 

 of the circle -dancing fairies. Thus the brown 



