v WOODS AND FIELDS 171 
The wonderful phenomenon of phospho- 
rescence is not a special gift to the animal king- 
dom. Henry O. Forbes describes a forest in 
Sumatra: “The stem of every tree blinked 
with a pale greenish-white light which un- 
dulated also across the surface of the ground 
like moonlight coming and going behind the 
clouds, from a minute thread-like fungus in- 
visible in the day-time to the unassisted eye ; 
and here and there thick dumpy mushrooms 
displayed a sharp, clear dome of light, whose 
intensity never varied or changed till the break 
“of day ; long phosphorescent caterpillars and 
centipedes crawled out of every corner, leaving 
a trail of light behind them, while fire-flies 
darted about above like a lower firmament.” * - 
Woods and Forests were to our ancestors 
the special scenes of enchantment. . 
The great Ash tree Yggdrasil bound to- 
gether Heaven, Harth, and Hell. Its top 
reached to Heaven, its branches covered the 
Karth, and the roots penetrated into Hell. 
The three Normas or Fates sat under it, spin- 
ning the thread of life. 
1 Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archi- 
pelago. 
