THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
443 
material left on it for a winter we have ample evidence before 
us ; and there is reason to believe that a too heavy dressing 
of stimulating manure by killing the grass would produce a 
like result. Salt, again, by killing the grasses, is known to 
be succeeded by fungi which, as we have shown, live upon the 
decaying elements of the grass-roots. It is then just possible 
that rings may occasionally follow some unexplained atmo- 
spheric cause ; as the Dorset poet says — 
“ Zome 
Do zay do come by ligbtnen. when do thunder/’ 
This is the atmospheric theory. The same author gives 
the fairy theory in the following words : 
“ Zome do zay sich rings as thick ring there is 
Do grow in dancen-tracks o’ little vearies, 
That in the nights o’ zummer or o’ spring 
Do come by moonlight, when noo other veet 
Do tread the dewy grass but theirs, an’ meet 
An’ dance away together in a ring.” 
Barnes ’ Poems on Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect. 
It is a curious fact that the Dorsetshire peasant of our day 
gives the name of vedrie to the stoat and weasel, which 
suggests the possibility that these quadrupeds might have 
been observed by them roaming about the sites of fairy-rings 
in search of the larvae by which the area of the circle is first 
formed. At all events, our labourers believe that their 
vearies have some connection with the rings. 
This suggests the probability that the mole-tracks observed 
about fairy-rings by Mr. Lees are caused by these voracious 
creatures visiting the bare patches made by the melolontha, 
and burrowing beneath the soil in search of them. 
Our observations, then, lead us to conclude that fairy-rings 
are not usually caused by fungi, though these may take pos- 
session of a ring formed by other means. Nor do we suppose, 
with Aubrey, that the rings are produced by “ a fertile 
subterraneous vapour , which comes from a kinde of conical 
concave 
We cannot agree with the mole theory, for the reason that 
moles do not kill grasses, but, on the contrary, make a field 
more fertile ; and although our landlord mqkes us pay a mole- 
rate for the destruction of these creatures on his estate, we 
have never seen any sign of one on our own farm ; and if we 
had a choice in the matter, such is our love of these creatures, 
and such our conviction of the good they do, that we had 
rather pay a rate for their preservation. Were they pre- 
served on our farm, we think it impossible that we should 
