phenomenon pretty frequent in the fields, and supposed by the peasantry to have been traced by the fairies in their dances. There are two kinds of fairy ring: one of about seven yards in diameter, containing a round bare path, about a foot broad, with green grass in the middle of it; and another of different dimensions, encompassed with a circumference of grass. The formation of these rings was formerly ascribed to the action of lightning; and some have attributed them to the labours of ants; but Mr Carvallo, in his Treatise on Electricity, points to their true origin when he says—"They seem to be rather beds of mushrooms than the effects of lightning." These rings are seldom of a perfect form, and frequently spread with great irregularity, forming, as it were, a series of arcs of circles. This irregularity is occasioned by the peculiar mode of growth of the fungi by which they are produced. In the words of Dr Carpenter (Principles of Physiology), "The masses of fungous vegetation which form the progressively extending fairy rings or magic circles of the grassy meadow may be said to be several years of age, although, as fast as new tissue is generated on the exterior of the ring, that of the central side dies and decays, so that no individual part has more than a brief duration."