V WOODS AND FIELDS 171 



The wonderful phenomenon of phospho- 

 rescence is not a special gift to the animal king- 

 dom. Henry 0. Forbes describes a forest in 

 Sumatra : " The stem of every tree blinked 

 with a pale greenish-white light which un- 

 dulated also across the surface of the ground 

 like moonlight coming and going behind the 

 clouds, from a minute thread-like fungus in- 

 visible in the day-time to the unassisted eye ; 

 and here and there thick dumpy mushrooms 

 displayed a sharp, clear dome of light, whose 

 intensity never varied or changed till the break 

 of day ; long phosphorescent caterpillars and 

 centipedes crawled out of every corner, leaving 

 a trail of light behind them, while fire-flies 

 darted about above like a lower firmament." ^ 



Woods and Forests were to our ancestors 

 the special scenes of enchantment. 



The great Ash tree Yggdrasil bound to- 

 gether Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Its top 

 reached to Heaven, its branches covered the 

 Earth, and the roots penetrated into Hell. 

 The three Normas or Fates sat under it, spin- 

 ning the thread of life. 



1 Forbes, A Naturalist's ]Vanderings in the Eastern Archi- 

 pelago, 



