The Botany of Shakespeare 217 



withal so realistic, made their creation a suitable trick 



for Prospero: 



"You demi-puppets that 



By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, 

 Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime 

 Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice 

 To hear the solemn curfew. ' ' Tempest, iv : v, 36. 



The green sour ringlets on the fields ''whereof the ewe 

 not bites" are fairy rings. The same thing appears in 

 the speech of Dame Quickly : 



"And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, 

 Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring; 

 The expressure that it bears, green let it be, 

 More fertile-fresh than all the field to see." 



Merry Wives, v : v, 69. 



Fungi, toadstools, mushrooms, and so forth, are fructi- 

 fications only; the vegetative part of the plants perme- 

 ates the soil, feeds on its organic matter, and spreads al- 

 most equally, we may assume, in all directions from the 

 point of starting. When now this vegetative growth has 

 accumulated energy to form fruit, the sporocarps, or 

 mushrooms, rise all around at the limits of activity: 

 hence, in a circle. 



The fungi cut small figure in Shakespeare i.e., con- 

 sidering their numbers and almost omnipresence. But 

 we must remember that they were at that time studied 

 by few, their significance and interest little suspected. 

 They formed part of the realm of the world unseen ; they 

 came and went at the instance of powers unknown, mostly 

 personified, imaginary, a misty population, the thought 

 of which kept for long ages the childhood of our race in 



