excellent styptic for stopping blood and allaying pain; and they announce to the hapless exiles of Siberia, when their gayly colored forms spring forth from the crevices of the rocks, and in the dark haunts of the gloomy fir-woods, that the stormy blasts of winter and spring are past, and that the summer and autumn, those short, sweet seasons of indescribable beauty and pleasure, have come. Certain genera and species occur only in tropical and sub-tropical regions, having their northern limit in the north of Africa or the coast of the Mediterranean. Several genera and species are confined to New Zealand, others to Ceylon and Java, others to the Cape de Verde Islands and the United States. Like flowering plants, the fungi of different climates and zones are found at different heights along the sides of tropical mountains that rise above the snow-line. In the Sikkim Himalayas, Polyporus Sanguineus, and Xanthopus luxuriate in the stifling tropical woods at the base of the hills; higher up the fungi peculiar to Ceylon and Java grow among the palms and tree-ferns of the mid regions; higher still, the species of Southern Europe abound in the deodar forests and among the rhododendron thickets of the upper heights; while below the line of perpetual snow, on grassy slopes and amid scrubby vegetation, may be seen species, if not identical with, at least very closely allied to, those of Britain and Sweden. One species has been found at a height of 18,000 feet, which is probably the highest range of fungoid growth. FAIRY RINGS --A. B. STEELE The green circles, or parts of circles in pastures, popularly known as fairy rings, have given rise to many curious beliefs and sayings, and their marvelously rapid growth has struck the uncultivated as a supernatural phenomenon. The prevalent belief was that they were caused by the midnight dancing and revelry of the fairies; and Shakespeare speaks of the elves-- “Whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms.”