372 WHITE 



but in narrow hedgerows and the skirts of coppices. Some 

 truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth, and some, 

 quite on the surface; the latter, he added, have little or no 

 smell, and are not so easily discovered by the dogs as those 

 that lie deeper. Half a crown a pound was the price which 

 he asked for this commodity. Truffles never abound in wet 

 winters and springs. They are in season, in different situ- 

 ations, at least nine months in the year. WHITE. 



TREMELL A NOSTOC. Though the weather may have been 

 ever so dry and burning, yet after two or three wet days this 

 jelly-like substance abounds on the walks. WHITE. 



FAIRY RINGS. The cause, occasion, call it what you will, 

 of fairy rings, subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it : l 

 for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down above, 

 abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape and 

 shift situation continually, discovering themselves now in circles, 

 now in segments, and sometimes in irregular patches and spots. 

 Wherever they obtain, puffballs abound, the seeds of which 

 were doubtless brought in the turf. WHITE. 



NOTE 



1 Fairy rings are caused by certain fungi which throw their seeds out- 

 wards, so that a gradually increasing circle is formed of greener and brighter 

 vegetation. G. C. D. 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 



BAROMETER. November 22nd, 1768. A remarkable fall 

 of the barometer all over the kingdom. At Selborne we had 

 no wind, and not much rain ; only vast, swagging, rock-like 

 clouds appeared at a distance. WHITE. 



PARTIAL FROST. The country-people, who are abroad in 

 winter mornings long before sunrise, talk much of hard frosts 

 in some spots, and none in others. The reason of these par- 

 tial frosts is obvious, for there are at such times partial fogs 

 about ; where the fog obtains, little or no frost appears ; but 



