488 OBSERVATIONS ON 



ood. 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 6 . 



TREMELLA NOSTOC. 



THOUGH the weather may have been ever so dry and 

 burning, yet after two or three wet days, this jellylike 

 substance abounds on the walks. 



FAIRY RINGS 7 . 



THE cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy 

 rings, subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it; 



6 We discovered, many years ago, an immense stock of very small 

 truffles crowded together under a young cedar-tree upon the lawn, near 

 the house at Highclere. Mr. Gowen tried successfully the experiment 

 of transplanting several of these and setting them under beech-trees, 

 marking the spots where they were planted. They increased in size, 

 and became much finer than those which were left. W. H. 



7 Mr. Dovaston of Shrewsbury has lately published a very ingenious 

 paper on this subject, in which he adopts the electric theory of their 

 formation. His doctrine is, that when a column of electric matter affects 

 the earth, either ascending or descending, it scorches the ground all 

 around its edge, and leaves the centre untouched Consequently the 

 grass is withered, which contributes to fertilize the spot where the 

 herbage springs luxuriantly the following season, and at the same time 

 brings into vegetation the dormant seeds of fungi, which grow and disap- 

 pear rapidly, and with them the fairy ring rarely existing two successive 

 seasons. The common fungi of fairy rings are Agaricus, Boletus, or Lyco- 

 perdon, and, sometimes, Clavaria. RENNIE. 



Mr. Jessopp, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1675, propounded 

 the electrical theory, and adduced in support of it the testimony of a friend 

 who, walking out one day among some mowing grass, in which he had 



