^.^ FAlRV-RrNGS. 



round patches : In all of thefe the grafs grew more luxuriant 

 and of a deeper hue : No other fungus was to be found in 

 any of them but the efculent rauthroom. In the part lately 

 mowed, and in that where the cattle were grazing, there was 

 not the leaft appearance of fairy-ringS. 

 Another field In the courfe of fubfequent perambulations, I obferved in 

 ajou^ndiBg with ^ grafs field fituated on the top of the firft high ground upon 

 the road from Rumfey to Salilbury, appearances nearly fimilar 

 to thofe exhibited in the growing grafs of the park. There 

 had been all fummer, and there were ftill horfes grazing in 

 this field : The fairy-rings were numerous, but the grafs in the 

 rings and patches, inftead of being mare luxuriant, was com- 

 pletely dry and blafted, and there grew two or three different 

 fungi, all of them of thofe forts which are reckoned noxious. 

 "they were not That the falcv-rlngs at Broadlands were not the effedl of 

 -iedK"'^ ^ eleftricity, appears to me beyond all doubt, fince one part 

 only of the park exhibited them, while the reft of the conti- 

 guous grounds, divided from that part by nothing more than 

 a row of hurdles, did not fliew any fuch appearance : other- 

 wife it muft be contended, Jhat the electrical phenomena might 

 take place on one fide of the hurdles and never on the other, 

 a prediledion truly fingular, and, I (hould think, difficult to 

 be accounted for. 

 iat by the ex- Another fa£l which I have repeatedly obferved fince that 

 korTcs"^ "'^ '^' *''"*^' ^^^ ^^^ "*® ^^ fufpea that the fairy-rings, their different 

 appearances, and the various fpecles of fungi found in them, 

 might be produced by no more uncommon caufe than the ex- 

 crements of the horfes. 

 Argumftit from The hot-beds made of horfe-dung, which I have had feveral 

 ":nVo^t-bc"?" times in my garden, have generally produced in fucceflion the 

 fame fungi which are to be found in the different ftates of the 

 fairy-rings. Whilft the beds are yet new, the fungi are of 

 the fame noxious fpecles as 1 faw in the dry blafled fairy-rings, 

 but when they grow cooler and more matured, efculent mufli- 

 rooras begin to grow naturally, and although no fpawn was 

 ever put in the bed. 



I have alfo remarked, that horfe-dung produced in fome 

 leafons an immenfe quantity of muflirooms, and hardly any in 

 others : This might perhaps be attributed to the different 

 quality of the hay ou whicii the liorfes had fed; and this migh-t 

 explain why fairy-rings are to be found in forae paflures rather 

 than in others. 



That 



