450 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 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 

 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, subsists 

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

 walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appear- 

 ances, 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, 

 puff-balls abound ; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in 

 the turf. WHITE. 



