468 The Natural History of Selborne 



TRUFFLES. 



AUGUST. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his pocket 

 several large truffles found in this neighbourhood. He says these 

 roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedge- 

 rows and the skirts of coppices. Some truffles, he informed 

 us, lie two feet within the earth, and some quite on the sur- 

 face; the latter, he added, have little or no smell, and are not 

 so easily discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper. Haif- 

 a-crown a pound was the price which he asked for this com- 

 modity. Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs. 

 They are in season, in different situations, at least nine months 

 in the year. WHITE. 



TREMELLA 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, sub- 

 sists in the turf, and is conveyable with it : for the turf of my 

 garden-walks, brought from the down above, abounds with 

 those appearances, which vary their shape, and shift situa- 

 tion continually, discovering themselves now in circles, now 

 in segments, and sometimes in irregular patches and spots. 

 Wherever they obtain, puff-balls abound; the seeds of which 

 were doubtless brought in the turf. WHITE. 



