Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/454

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August.—A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his pocket several large truffles found in this neighbourhood. He says these roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedgerows and the skirts of coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth, and some, quite on the surface; the latter, he added, have little or no smell, and are not so easily discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half-a-crown a pound was the price which he asked for this commodity. Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs. They are in season, in different situations, at least nine months in the year.—.

Though the weather may have been ever so dry and burning, yet after two or three wet days, this jelly-like substance abounds on the walks.—.

The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy rings, subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it: for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape, and shift situation continually, discovering themselves now in circles, now in segments, and sometimes in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puffballs abound; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in the turf.—.