COUNTRY. LIFE
Thundevb re d Toadstools
A coincidence of weather and growth has bceri'Very striking, almost startling, in my immediate district. After three bouts of thunderstorms, in different weeks, mushrooms and funguses have sprung up with the suddenness that marks these queer Parasites. Both the strangest thunderstorms and the stran- gest outcrop occurred last week. For the better part of one day thunderclaps were frequent, though rain was very slight ; and many of the rapid storm clouds passed over without letting a drop, or more than a drop or two, fall. The next day a low bank on which a sweetbrier hedge had been planted was almost invisible in places for the host of toadstools, brown, white and purple. Some were the most succulent agar/eta 'eampestris, some poisonous funguses. The outcrop Was immense and the more surprising because the thunder- storm was of the winter, not the summer, type. The tem- perature was low. I suppose that the scientific will scoff at the possibility of any causal nexus between growth and an electric air, and will explain that the moisture is chiefly, if not wholly, responSibie ; but they must forgive the country folk who get up early the morning after a thunderstorm and return with a satisfactory load of mushrooms.
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