SHOT STARS; tremella nosea, (Lin. Spec. Plant. Dillenius de Mucilis, tab. 10. fig. 14. Flor. Danica, tab. 885. fig. 1.); tremella intestinalis vel mesenterica, meenterica, (Lin. Spec. Plant. Dillen. de Mus. tab. 10. fig. 16. Flor. Danic. tab. 885. fig. 2.):
A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine gives this account of it: "The substance in question is not uncommon in England, nor in all other parts of Europe, after rains, both in spring and autumn. Very large spots of it are seen in gravelly soils, and particularly on the tops of hills, and on open downs, and often it is found on gravel walks.
"It is met with in some of the old authors, under the name of nofloc, as in Paracelsus and others; and the alchemists fancied there was something wonderful in it, and that it would afford a menstruum for gold. Nofloc is said to be a word synonymous to Jaculum elicitus stellae, vel potius ejus repurgatione dejectum quid in terram; flos aëris; fragmentum nimbii; as this substance was believed to fall from the sky with the meteors that we often see, and call falling-stars. Hence the country people in Sweden have called it sky-fall; and in England it is known by the name of witches butter, in common with some of the gelatinous liver-worts.
"Paracelsus, Helmont, and others, ranked it with the terniabin, or manna, and thought it dropped, as that did, from heaven. It is described, and the chemical analysis thereof given, by M. Geoffrey, in the Paris Memoirs for 1708, and is there said to yield, besides an acid phlegm, a portion of concrete volatile salt and some fixed salt. The distilled water from it was believed by some to possess singular virtues, in allaying pains of the joints; but there is certainly no room to attribute any extraordinary qualities to it.
"Since the days of Paracelsus it has been considered as a vegetable production; but the botanists have had difficulty to assign its place or genus in their several systems. Our own countryman, Dr Merret, seems to have been among the first authors who ranked it among vegetables, and he calls it Lichen humilis intumescens, fuscate evanescens (Pin. page 71.). Others have retained it among the plants of that genus to this day; as does the celebrated Dr Haller, in his Historia Stirp. Helvetiae, who calls it Lichen gelatinosus, plicatus, undulatus; lacinios crispatis, granulosus, No 2041, as there are several of the liverworts that have a gelatinous texture and appearance; though they differ much from the nofloc, in not being so instantly dried up. It was put into Ray's Synopsis, by Dr Dillenius, under the name of Ulva terrestris pinguis et fugax, p. 64.; but he afterwards changed that name for tremella, in his Historia Muscorum, where he calls it tremella terrestris pinguis pinguis et fugax, p. 52. tab. 10. f. 14., and reduces the lavers to the same genus. Micheli, an Italian botanist, famous for his attention to the Cryptogamia class of plants, makes it a fungus, as Magnol and Dr Morison had done before him, and describes and figures it, in his Nova Plantarum Genera, under the name of Linkia terrestris gelatinosa, membranacea, vulgarissima, p. 126. t. 67. f. 1. He describes the feeds as lying in the form of little strings of beads, coiled up within the plant, or rather in the folds thereof, and only to be discovered by the microscope. Linnaeus mentions it, first under the name of Bytus gelatinosus fugax terrestris, in his Flora Lapponica, No 530; but he afterwards adopted Dillenius's term, though he does not make it a laver. Linnaeus has called it, in all his subsequent works, tremella (nofloc) plicata, undulata, under which name it stands in his Species Plantarum, p. 1157, and in Hudson's Flora Anglica, p. 463, as also in a numerous set of other authors who follow his system."
Another writer in the same work gives this account of it. "This substance is very rarely seen between the middle of April and the month of October. It is most frequently to be found in the high pasture lands, where the ground is inclined to wet, and on the moors and commons in the north of England. The time we always meet with it is after a very wet night, when the air in the morning suddenly clears up, and a sharp frost ensues. The frogs that then happen to be out are immediately seized by the frost, and turned into this jelly-like substance. For as I have had occasion sometimes to go out very early, I have found several parts of the frog not yet dissolved among the jelly, such as feet, legs, and thighs, yet in a little time afterwards the change was fully completed. The quantity of jelly produced from one single frog is almost beyond belief, even to five or six times its bulk when in its natural state.
"I communicated this discovery to an acquaintance, who has since had frequent opportunities of observing and examining this production; and we are fully assured, that, whatever opinion the learned may have of it, it certainly proceeds from the above-mentioned cause wherever found.
"Most people that I have conversed with on the subject, are of opinion that this jelly falls from the stars, or out of the higher regions of the air; which notion, however absurd, many are credulous enough to believe."
Naturalists had for some years begun to doubt whether these gelatinous substances were of a vegetable or animal nature, when at length Mr J. Platt of Oxford, in a letter printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1776, page 402, threw such light on the subject as to us, at least, is perfectly satisfactory.
"From a child I remember seeing the meteors shooting in the air, which appearance, by my comrades, was called star-shooting, believing the stars no larger than their apparent magnitude. This jelly-like substance mentioned in your magazine, was believed to be the dros of these meteors, and took the name of star-flot, which passed for certain with me till I had arrived at the age of 24, when I was engaged in business that required my frequently passing over both meadows and pasture-grounds, where in spring and autumn I saw many portions of this supposed alga or nofloc, but never more than one or two contiguous, mostly near the water, when the meadows were or had been just before flooded. My conjectures were various, until I saw a crow pecking of something in a field, which I heard to cry; when turning my horse to the place, I found a frog of the common size, which the crow (of the carrion kind) would soon have killed and gorged, had I not disturbed her, and chased her away.
"About this time I found in a meadow the bowels of a frog indigested, and compact as the chitterlings of a calf or pig; but white as the paper I write upon, though not translucent. I took it up, and placed it in a paper exposed to the air; leaving it in some grass where I found it, till my return that way in three days time, Norfolk, time, when I saw it changed to that tremulous jelly-like substance, the alga or star-thot. I was much pleased with this discovery, and took it home in my pocket wrapped in a paper, where I showed it to a society of young persons of which I was a member, who agreed with my sentiments of its being the indigestible part of a frog digorged by some bird of prey.
"To corroborate my sentiments of this alga being the bowels of a frog, I luckily saw some of it lying by the side of a brook, where I lighted and took it up, and to my great surprise found attached to the jelly the head, heart, liver, and one leg of the frog, which had been (I presume) digorged by some carrion crow, who frequented the flooded grounds to pick up worms and other vermin. There was also some of it found on an apple tree at Wynton Magna, near Leicester, where I then lived, which, no doubt, was digorged by some owl."
Dr Darwin, in his Poem on the Loves of the Plants, is of the same opinion with Mr Platt, that these gelatinous substances are of an animal nature, and that the different appearances they put on are owing to various circumstances, viz. the different birds who feed on frogs, the quantity they devour at a time, and the state of digestion before they are voided.