“On December 1st, 1907, when again reaching the top of Twyford Hill, I noticed what I took to be the lamp of a motor bicycle moving rapidly along the Bintree road to the south. The light suddenly stopped, rose into the air above the trees and retraced its course. This it did several times, sometimes rising twenty to forty feet into the air, and then rapidly descending. I called my groom and his wife from their cottage a few hundred yards away, and they watched it with me for several minutes. I then went to my house about half a mile off, and from one of the attic windows watched it with my son and three servants for a short time....” The mysterious light appeared frequently for a period of weeks, maneuvering silently, its luminosity sometimes so great that “it literally lighted up the branches of the trees as it flew past them.” Attempts to identify it through a telescope were unsuccessful but eventually one observer was lucky enough to hear a sound as the light soared past, and at once identified it by its unique call as a white owl, _Strix flammea_[VI-2]. If these sightings had occurred half a century later, the witnesses might well have called them flying saucers. _Things That Glow in the Dark_ The luminous owls of Norfolk have appeared at intervals since 1866 to frighten the superstitious and puzzle the naturalist, but ornithologists managed to solve the mystery some years ago[VI-3]. The birds acquire their temporary luminosity from contact with a common fungus, _Armillaria mellea_, popularly known as “honey-tuft.” This mushroom, which mycophagists prize for its delicious flavor, grows in large clumps on dead trees and stumps. The dark-brown cap is rough, with fibrous scales, while the white gills are hooked or toothed at the end and the spores are white. The dense white lacework of the root system or mycelium, which gives off a phosphorescent light, may permeate the entire tree and extend even into the fibers at the base of the tree. Wood infested with the fungus can glow in the dark, sometimes so brightly that a man could read his watch by its light. Many of the tales of fox fire, corpse candles, and lanternmen undoubtedly come from glimpses of this fungoid phosphorescence. Owls that seek refuge in the dark interiors of hollow trees during the daytime may brush against the veins of the mycelium, which adheres to the feathered body. Flitting about at night, the luminous bird becomes the dancing flame of the will o’ the wisp.