18 



THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



ducks, they now flicker away in a covey together, with astonishing speed, their long^, 

 thin, tapering wings quivering in rapid vibrations as they dart through the air, resem- 

 bling the wings of the sparrow tribe. They appear to have as perfect self-command 

 in the air as the water, the body of the flock always following the motions of the 

 leaders, jUst as seen in a flock of birds, Soaring up and sinking down, or wheeling to 

 cither hand, according as the pilots of the band vary their own onWard flight. They 

 fly by night as well as by day, although their power of vision in the former must be 

 very defective, as is shown by their frequently dropping on board ship during the 

 night, an accident which never happens to them during the day. Like most other 

 fishes, thoy are attracted by a glare of light, and it is by taking advantage of this that 

 they are allured in such numbers into the nets constructed for them on the Barba- 

 does coast, as to constitute no inconsiderable item in the food of the inhabitants of 

 that island. Ships have sometimes followed a similar plan with singular success. 

 H.M.S. Prometheus, in running down the trades, by nailing hammock-cloths along 

 her sides, supported out by handspikes, and illumined by a row of pursers' lanterns 

 bet%veen, caught as many nightly as gave a daily meal to all on board. They are 

 sweet, dehcate, and juicy eating, contrary to that of most of the other deep-sea fishe?, 

 which are harsh, dry, and tasteless. Their manner of cooking them in Barbadoes is 

 by frying with a little lard and flour, dusting until brown and dry, and in this state 

 exposing them for sale, every boat that visits a ship having generally large platters- 

 full of them piled up in cross layers over each other, which always find abundance of 

 eager customers, particularly after a long salt-beef cruise. Nor is the peculiar ora- 

 tory, playful motions, and merry smirking faces of the jetty belles who vend them, the 

 least interesting part of the scene; dancing nimbly about on some convenient boat plank, 

 wagging their heads laughingly to and fro, and snapping their fingers in cadence to the 

 tune they are humming, until attaining the object they had in view, of attracting tho 

 attention of some one to their wares, they now simper out, in their best boarding- 

 school English, some such speech as the following: — " Hye, buckra, do come buy him 

 fine fish fo yam-chah I bady, what fo you no buy him all den off ? I pop fo moe Uke a 

 bottle o' pruce." 



Eggs Preserved for Three Hukdred Years. — Three eggs were found in the 

 wall of a chapel, which was built upwards of 300 years ago, near the Lago Mag- 

 giore. These were embedded in the mortar of the %vall, and, upon attentive examina- 

 tion, they were found to be quite fresh. It has been long known, that the eggs of 

 birds, brought from India or America, when covered with a thin coating of was, re- 

 tain their vital principle, and have been hatched after the wax had been dissolved by 

 alcohol. 



BuTTERFLT Feasts. — There is a certain mountain in New Holland, called 

 the Bugong mountain, from multitudes of small moths called Bugong by the natives, 

 which congregate at certain times, upon masses of granite, on this mountain. The 

 months of November, December, and January, are quite a season of festivity amongst 

 tho people, who assemble from every quarter to collect these moths. They ai"e 

 stated also to form the principal summer food of those who inhabit to tho south of tho 

 snow mountains. To collect these moths, or rather butterflies, the natives make 

 smothered fires under the rocks on which they congregate ; and suffocating them with 

 smoke, collect them by bushels, and then bake them by placing them on heated ground. 

 Thus they separate fi'ora them the doT^-n and the wings ; they are then pounded and 

 formed into cakes resembling lumps of fat, and often smoked, which preserves them 

 for some time. When accustomed to this diet, they thrive and fatten exceedingly 

 upon it. Millions of these animals were observed also, on the coast of New Holland, 

 both by Captains Cook and King. Thus has a kind Providence prov'idedan abundant 

 supply of food for a race that, subsisting solely by hunting or fishing, must often bo 

 reduced to grfeat streights. 



BOTANY AND HORTICULTURE. 



FAIRY RINGS. 

 The cause of these singular appearances was long unknown to Natural Philosophers, 

 although many attempted to remove them, by conjecture, from the dominion of " fairy 

 elves," into the soberer domains of Science. As is well known to shepherds and 

 agricultural labourers, fairy rings are spots of grass, more luxuriant and green than 

 any other part in a field. These spots ai-e usually circular, either having within them 

 a spot of grass, peculiarly luxuriant throughout its entire surface, or being only a cir- 

 cular zone of very luxuriant grass, inclosing within it a quantity of similarly coloured 

 herbage, but not quite so luxuriant as the zone, although superior to the rest of the 

 grass in the same field. Often the circle is incomplete, and consists only of an arch 

 or segment of a circle, which is frequently bent in an irregular manner. 



It is unnecessary at present to speak of the absurdity of the populai' opinion on this 

 subject. The belief in Fairies or Genii, as secondary causes of the various phenomena 

 of nature, seems congenial to the human mind, and it has, aecovdingly, been found in 

 almost every country. The Arabs call them Ginn, and tho Persians Peri ; and they 

 were supposed to inhabit a fairy-land, which was called Ginnistan. In many districts 

 of our own country, the belief in the existence of Fairies, Benshees, and Bogles, still 

 retains its bold over the minds of the people. 



Mr Jessop and Dr Priestley thought that fairy circles were caused by Electricity. 

 *,' I have been often puzzled," says Mr Jessop in one of the earlier volumes of the 

 Philosophical Transactions, " to give an account of those phenomena which are called 

 Fairy Circles. I have seen many of them, and those of two sorts ; one sort bare, of 

 seven or eight yards in diameter, making a round path, something more than a foot 

 broad, with green grass in the middle ; the others like them, but of several bignesses, 

 and encompassed with a circumference of grass, about the same breadth, much fresher 

 and greener than that in the middle. But my worthy friend Mr Walker gave me full 

 satisfaction from his own experience. It was his chance one day to walk out among 

 some mowing grass (in which he had been but a little while before) after a great 

 storm of thunder and hghtning, which seemed by the noise and flashes to have been 

 very near him; he presently observed a round circle, of about four or five yards dia- 

 meter, the rim whereof was about a foot broad, newly burnt bare, as the colour and 

 brittleness of the grass roots did plainly testify. He knew not what to ascribe it unto 



but to the lightning, which, besides the odd caprices remarkable in that fire in par- 

 ticular, might, without any wonder, like all other fires, move round and burn more 

 in the extremities than the middle. After the grass was mowed, the next year it 

 came up more fresh and green in the place burnt than in the middle, and at mowing 

 time was much taller and ranker." 



Dr Price suggested to Dr Priestley that fairy rings might be of an electric origin, 

 and be produced in the same manner as those circular spots, which are procured by 

 submitting mctaUic substances covered with water to the influence of an electric bat- 

 tery. *' I have examined one of these rings," says Dr Priestley ; *■* it was about a yard 

 in diameter, the ring itself about a quarter of a yard broad, and equally so in the whole 

 circumference ; but there was no appearance of any thing to correspond with the cen- 

 tral spot," observed in the electrical experiments. 



IMr Cavallo, in his Treatise on Electricity, which appeared in 1777, was the fir^t 

 who called in question the electric origin of these circles. " This supposition," he 

 observes, " is not very probable, for the spots in the fields, called /aiVy circles, havn 

 no central spot, no concentric circles, neither are they always of a circular figure ; 

 and, as I am informed, they seem to be rather beds of mushrooms than the effects t-f 

 lightning." 



Mr White, in the Natural History of Selborne, makes the following observations 

 on the subject: — '* The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy rings, subsists ia 

 the tm-f, 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 sliift situa- 

 tion continually, discovering themselves now in circles, now in segments, and some- 

 times in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puff-balls abound, the 

 seeds of which are doubtless brought in the turf." Mr Johnson of Weathcrly, in a 

 paper in the fourth volume of the Philosophical Journal, attributes them " to the drop- 

 pings of Starlings, which, when in large flights, frequently alight on the ground in 

 circles, and sometimes are known to sit a considerable time in these annular congre- 

 gations." 



The suggestion made to Cavallo, that these circles are occasioned by mushrooms, 

 has, since that time, been completely confirmed by the observations of Drs Withering 

 and Wollaston. The former considered them to be caused by a species of Agaricus 

 fJff. Orcades) ; but the latter showed that many other species of Agarici, and the 

 Lycoperdon bovista, were capable of producing them. 



In a valuable paper in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1807, Dr Wol- 

 laston described the manner in which these circles were formed : — 



*' That which first attracted my notice," says he, *' was the position of certain 

 fungi, which are always to he found growing upon these circles, if examined in a pro- 

 per season. In the case of mushrooms, I found them to be solely at the exterior 

 margin of the dark ring of grass. The breadth of the ring in that instance, measured 

 from them towards the centre, was about twelve or fourteen inches, while the mush- 

 rooms themselves covered an exterior ring about four or five inches broad. 



'* The position of these mushrooms leads me to conjecture that progressive increase, 

 from a central point, was the probable mode of formation of the ring. I was the 

 more inclined to this hypothesis, when I found that a second species of fungus pre- 

 sented a similar arrangement, with respect to the relative position of the ring and 

 fungi ; for I observed, that in all instances the present appearance of fungi was upon 

 the exterior border of a dark ring of grass. I thought it not improbable that the soil, 

 which had once contributed to the support of fungi, might be so exhausted of some 

 peculiar pabulum necessary for their production, as to be rendered incapable of pro- 

 ducing a second crop of that singular class of vegetables. The second year's crop 

 would consequently appear in a small ring surrounding the original centre of ven-eta- 

 tion, and at every succeeding year the defect of nutriment on one side would necessa- 

 rily cause the new roots to extend themselves solely in the opposite direction, and 

 would occasion the circle of fungi continually to proceed by annual enlargement from 

 the centre outwards. An appearance of luxuriance of the grass would follow as a 

 natural consequence, as the soil of an interior circle would always be enriched by the 

 decayed roots of fungi of the preceding year's growth. During the growth of the 

 fungi, they so entirely absorb all nutriment from the soil beneath, that the herbar^e is 

 for a while destroyed, and a ring appears, bare of grass, surrounding the dark ring. If 

 a transverse section be made of the soil beneath the ring at this time, the part beneath 

 the fungi appears paler than the soil on either side of it; but that which is beneath t!;o 

 interior circle of dark grass is found, on the contrary, to be considerably darker than 

 the general surrounding soil. But in the course of a few weeks after the fun"-i have 

 ceased to appear, the soil where they stood grows darker, and the grass soon ver>etatcs 

 again with peculiar vigour; so that I have seen the surface covered with dark grass 

 although the darkened soil has not exceeded half an inch in thickness, while that 

 beneath has continued white with spawn of these mushrooms for about tv/o inches 

 in depth. 



" For the purpose of observing the progress of various circles, I marked them three 

 or four years in succession, by incisions of diflerent kinds, by %vhich I could distinn-uish 

 clearly the successive anuual increase, and I found it to vary in different circles from 

 eight inches to as much as two feet. The broadest rings that I have seen were those 

 of the common mushroom (Agarlois campestrl-<) ; the narrowest are the most frequent, 

 and are those of the champignon (Jgaricus Orcades of Withering.J The mushroom 

 accordingly makes circles of largest diameter, but those of the champignon are most 

 regular. There are, however, as many as three other fungi that exhibit the same 

 mode of extension, and produce the same effect upon the herbage. These ai-e the 

 Agaricus terreus, Agaricus procerus, and the Lycoperdon bovista, the last of which is 

 far more common than the two last mentioned agarici. 



" There is one circumstance that may frequently be observed respecting these cir- 

 cles, which can satisfactorily be accounted for, according to the preceding hypothesis 

 of the cause of their increase, and may be considered as a confirmation of its truth. 

 Whenever two adjacent circles ai-e found to interfere, they not only do not cross each 

 other, but both circles are invariably obliterated between the points of contact, at 

 least in more than twenty cases ; I have seen no one instance to the contrary. Tho 

 exhaustion occasioned by each obstructs the progress of the other, and both are 

 starved." 



