1 64 



AUTUMN AND WINTER 



Did ever any plant offer such contrasts in its effect both 

 on us and on things. It may give utter disgust. To quote a 

 passage written one gloomy day after seeing some fungi in 

 their more loathly forms: 'Hard and loathly forms appear 

 like the spirit of death from rotting trunks ; a charnel smell 

 betrays the life-sucking parasites that spring from lively tree 

 roots. As depressing a sight as any that winter brings is the 



'THE FAERY RING' 



horror of a dead fly glued to a vertical grave by a fungus 

 growth from its own body. The very principle of decay 

 seems illustrated by the mould that comes on damp, 

 neglected things, so impossible does it appear that this 

 same should be a plant sown in the common way by external 

 agents. . . . One fungus is found only on goose's feathers ! 

 Another only on oak leaves, so that the more you study its 

 ways and narrow habits the more the growth still impresses 

 you as an emanation. One springs only from the body of 

 a caterpillar, another lives by catching meal-worms in 

 a spore-noose, specially adapted to the size and habit of 

 the victim.' 



But the wanderer in autumn fields or woods could ill 

 spare the fungus. The rings of the coarsest of all the 



