"ved one about a yard in diameter, the ring 
FAIRY-RINGS. 
FAIRY-Rivxes, or Circles, is a name which has been 
iven to spots or rings in grass fields, which are either 
; Toocdiied chexecansa the field, or covered with grass 
more 
of n grass, incl a circular portion 
with grass less luxuriant. Dr Priest 
os aee eg 
about a quarter of a broad, so in the 
Sacheubdngainmaetaies but there was no appear- 
r led the withered grass of a foot- 
path, but they traversed the -shoulder of the hill im 
such a direction, as to correspond neither to a sheep- 
track nor a foot-path. Upon a near inspection, a nar- 
ipe of the grass to be quite dead and 
The breadth ipe was about nine, 
, ides of it were per- 
fectly defined, without any gradation from green to wi- 
thered grass, all me rer abe on e-em no heme 
without the i s ing suffered in east. 
The! oe tao trad ares ‘shout 160% 200 yards, 
“. i rer pecan eat merle patad ost 
hill, css a ow, ascending obliquely the 
shoulder of the summit of Arthur’s Seat, on the oniali 
east side.” Similar tracks of various extent were found 
in all the different and situations, from the south 
side of the summit to the north side of the hill, half 
year 1776, by Dr Ferguson, Dr Black 
err why thea 
. pe erin the plain, but none at the bottom. Pa- 
had been made the year before, and 
was then black, from the grass having rotted, the 
These tracks are not always continuous, 
but frequently consist gear ‘spots. tracks 
: rf and ery 
among the rotten grass in 
e 
The — part, however, of 
the dark green was behind last year’s track, and 
‘was owing to a similar growth of grass in places where 
the grass ‘been formerly killed or withered, and 
ber: wants apes ne tla sah peso which 
a deeper shade of green e rest of the hill. 
‘Hutton sometimes noticed five or six successions of 
tracks, but those which had been made above three ér 
the rw By ‘idadha ea roadie 
rings ; a line drawn 
from the centre bisecting the segment, that is to say, 
those portions of concentric circles are never i 4 
porns edo Ser pe and for this reason it will 
appear those circles of which segments are exhi- 
bited to our observation, must be increasing and not 
iminishing in their diameter. ’ is 
April, the peas Dacina groltoa hisul deca 
» the gre ins ly to wither and z 
Ie is: petipell yada a Weslo tone, chat i: Surg wee 
" -WOL. IX, PART 1. 
‘rounding the dark ring 
265 
or two, and then wreowe white or withered. Thus, 
every plant being killed in the new track, those ve. 
table bodies exposed to heat and moisture gradually de- 
cay, so as next year to exhibit a dark or black, instead 
of a light or white track, which it had been the year 
before ; but, during the second year, the dead plants 
are still observed in the turf, which, as it begins to get 
new plants, loses gradually the appearance of the old 
ones, until at last little more can be observed than a 
broad shade of a much deeper green, which, on the 
one side, is compared with the natural verdure into 
which it sometimes seems gradually to terminate ; 
whereas, on the other side, the deep green colour of 
the ground formerly tracked, is contrasted with the 
yellow or light colour of the withered grass.” After a 
careful examination of the ap s, Dr Hutton 
could think of no other mode of explaining them, than 
by ing that they were produced either by light- 
ning, or by the tion of insects. 
Dr Price, Dr Darwin, and Mr Gough, without any 
plausible reason, ascribed these phenomena to lightning ; 
but Dr Withering, with much more reason, accounted 
for their formation by the growth of fungi. He always 
found the spawn of the fungus below the brown and bare 
portion, by digging to the depth of two inches, whereas 
it was never found below those parts where the grass 
was green and luxuriant. ' 
Dr Wollaston has examined the subject of fairy cir- 
eles with his usual ingenuity and success. He observed 
that the fungi or mushrooms, first noticed by Wither- 
ing, were found solely at the exterior margin of the 
dark ring of grass. The breadth of the ring, in-that 
instance, measured from them towards the centre, was 
about 12 or 14 inches, while the exterior ring, occupied 
by the mushrooms, was only about four or five inches 
broad. Dr Wollaston conjectured, from the position of 
the mushrooms, that the rings were formed after the 
Pairy- 
Rings. 
, 
ws 
dif i 
lALéE ANE 
Cause of 
fairy rings 
first ex- q 
plained by 
Withering. 
Dr Wollas- 
ton’s obser- 
vations. 
mariner described by Dr Hutton, by a progressive in- _ 
crease from a centre, and this opinion was strengthened 
by finding that a second species of fungus presented a 
similar t, with respect to the edlative posi- 
tion of the ring and fungi, the fungi being always upon 
the external margin of adark ring of grass. “I thought 
it not improbable,” says Dr Wollaston, “ that the soil 
which had once contributed to the support of fungi might 
be so exhausted of’ some peculiar pideline necessary for 
their production, as to be rendered incapable of produ~ 
cing a second crop of that singular class of vegetables. 
The second year’s crop would consequently appear in a 
small ring surrounding the original centre of vegetation, 
and, at every succeeding year, the defect of nutriment on 
one side, would necessarily cause the new roots to ex- 
tend themselves solely in the opposite direction, and 
would occasion the circles of fungi continually to pro- 
ceed by annual enlargement from the centre outwards. 
An appearance of luxuriance of the grass would follow 
as a natural consequence, as the soil of an interior cir- 
cle would always be ‘enriched by the decayed roots of 
fungi of the preceding year’s growth.” : 
In oppidiian to ae sana of Dr Withering, that 
he never could find any spawn of the fungi among the 
green grass, Dr Wollaston tedly observed undecay- 
ed spawn, even > he the av luxuriant Brass. 3 2 
ing the growth of the fungi, they so entirely absorb 
pelea from the soil beneath, that the Rerbagh is for 
a while destroyed, and a ring appears, bare of grass, sur 
. If a transverse section be 
made of the soil beneath the ring, at this time, the part 
iL 
Yims 
; 
Lteld 
~~ 
