THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
371 
says , c It is believed that such is the case/ Now, after atten- 
tive observation, I myself do not believe it.” After some 
farther remarks, this author makes the following important 
statement, which we quote as being perfectly in accord with 
our own observations : — 
“ All fungi, whether Agarics, Boleti, or Poly pores, flourish 
on decaying substances, and rotting matter of some kind 
they require as a pabulum of support. Whatever, then, 
causes the withdrawal and death of grasses in pastures, or 
displaces the soil, enables the sporules of fungi to settle down, 
and Agarics, or ' Toadstools/ to appear ; and thus we notice 
them scattered about, without much wonder at their appear- 
ance, in the autumnal season ; for, as Shelley says — 
‘Agarics, fungi, mildew, and mould. 
All start like mist from the wet ground cold.’ 
But they do not start without some predisposing cause, or 
without something or other has caused decay where they 
arise.” * 
Here, then, we have the important fact that decaying 
matter is necessary to the production of our agarics, and it 
was doubtless this browned and withered state of the grass 
by which fungi are preceded, that induced some to believe 
that they were produced by electricity. Thus Dr. Darwin, a 
botanical poet, says — 
“ So from the clouds the playful lightning wings, 
Rives the firm oak, or prints the fairy rings.’ 5 
And Mr. Lees tells us that f Mr. J. F. Dovaston, in ' Loudon’s 
Magazine of Natural History/ like Darwin, ascribed the 
exciting cause of the formation of rings to strokes of electri- 
city/ which, laying bare the ring the first year, by ' the 
fertilization of combustion * gave rise the second year to a 
crop of grass 'with highly increased vigour and verdure/ 
This fertilisation, however, Dovaston remarks, though vio- 
lent, is of very short duration, and thus the circles soon dis- 
appear. It may be well to remark that both Aubrey, Darwin, 
and Dovaston all believed the rings to b z formed of their full 
size at once and by a sudden act, without which, indeed, the 
idea of dances in the moonlight, made evident when the sun 
rose, would have been unsustainable.” 
Shakespeare says : — 
* See ‘ Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club,’ for 1868, 
for these and subsequent notes on this curious subject, by Mr. E. Lees, 
E.L.S., &c. 
