592 



Marvels of the Universe 



Photo hii] 



■a't. r.z.s. 



THE SHORT-EARED 



rings and the contact broke 

 both. Our ancestors could 

 not understand them, and the 

 natural phenomena they could 

 not understand thej' attributed 

 to the intervention of the 

 devil or the fairies. If the 

 result seemed evil to them, 

 they debited the affair to the 

 devil's account with humanity ; 

 but if some good were trace- 

 able to it, they credited it to 

 the fairies. Now, along the 

 bright green circular lines in 

 the fields they found an abund- 

 ance of small mushrooms, or 

 toadstools, which were clearly 

 gifts from the good folk — the 

 fairies ; so the circles were 

 called " Fairy Rings," and a 

 plausible theory was invented 

 to justify the name. 



Here is the approved theory 

 of Fairy Rings as given to 

 us b}' Keightley, who knew 

 all about the good folk and 

 their ways : " The Elves are e.xtremely fond of dancing in the meadows, where they form those 

 circles of a livelier green which from them are called Elfdans (Elf-dance) : when the country 

 people see in the morning stripes along the dewy grass in the woods and meadows, they say the 

 Elves have been dancing there. If any should at midnight get within their circle, they [the 

 fairies] become visible to him, and they may then illude him." 



This is very pretty; and it is surely a thankless task to be called upon to explain the true 

 nature of Fairy Rings, and so help to destroy another bit of the romance handed down to us by 

 our fathers. But the botanist has this saving grace — that though he may shatter bits of the old 

 belief, he has much more wonderful things to tell if you will only listen to his modern fairy-tales. 

 He has been inside the charmed circle — not at midnight, but in broad daylight. The fairies that 

 marked this circle have become visible to him, but they have not " illuded " him. He has caught 

 them and put them under his microscope, and their ordinary invisibility has no longer served 

 them. 



In plain language the maker of the Fairy Ring was a minute speck of vegetable dust that floated 

 in the air from some previously existing Fairy Ring. It was a little oval fragment of mushroom, 

 thrown off from one of the " gills " which on the underside of the mushroom's cap radiate from the 

 central stem. Such a fragment is known as a spore, and the length of its longer axis only amounts 

 to eight microns — a single micron being ,-j;i^th of an inch. 



The spore sank between the grass-stems and reached the soil, where the congenial dampness 

 caused it to swell and burst its jacket, from which it issued as a filament slender as a fine hair. This 

 entered the soil among the grass-roots, where it found decayed animal and vegetable matter, which 

 it absorbed. Upon this food it grew, lengthening and branching, and the branches crossed and 

 re-crossed until they formed a httle patch of felted network. Then, having exhausted all the food 



THE 



Notice that the ear is divided into two cavities. On this, the right side of the 

 head, the upper hollovv' is blind and the lower conducts sound to the inner ear, but 

 on the left side the positions are reversed and the upper passage conveys sound. 



