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Among other phosphorescent fungi are several species of Agaricus, including the A. olearius of Europe, A. Gardneri of Brazil, and A. lampas of Australia, and besides the members of this genus, Thelaphora cærulea, which is the cause of the phosphorescent light sometimes to be seen on decaying wood the "touchwood" which many boys have kept in the hope of seeing this light displayed.
They had cast the torch of war afresh into the land, and here, southward, the flame burned bitterly, and with a merciless tongue devoured the lives of men, licking them up as a forest fire the dry leaves and the touchwood.
Fayth's this late fire, and is here seen his skeleton with the flesh on; but all tough and dry like a spongy dry leather, or touchwood all upon his bones. His head turned aside. A great man in his time, and Lord Chancellor; and his skeletons now exposed to be handled and derided by some, though admired for its duration by others. Many flocking to see it. 13th.
When I was a child I used to take touchwood, and, placing pieces of it over my eyes and in my mouth, I hid myself upon the staircase for the purpose of terrifying the people; but I was then much afraid of ghosts, so that I was always the first to be frightened. It is in the same way that the Prince de Conti does; he wishes to make himself feared, and he is the most timid person in the world.
"If the ship goes down, we intend to go down with her," cried one of his own mates. "A short life and a merry one. Oh! come and join us, old Fidd." The boatswain finding remonstrance useless, and unwilling to waste time returned to his labours. Just at that moment there came a fearful crash, the stout timbers and beams were rent, as if composed of mere touchwood. The ship broke in two.
But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot lay down legal maxims, without aid of smoke. "He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood.
His senses were deadened, and did not carry the usual vivid impression to the mind; he saw things as if they were afar off. Accidentally looking back, he found that his footmarks, as far as he could see, shone with a phosphoric light like that of "touchwood" in the dark. Near at hand they did not shine; the appearance did not come till some few minutes had elapsed.
He laid the notes upon the table, and tried to wet his thumb upon his lips. There was no moisture there, and his mouth was as dry as touchwood. He drank a little water, and then began to count the notes. He made them eighty-one at first; and then, recounting, made them seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made them eighty. 'Damn it all! said young Mr. Barter, 'can't I count?
The rains had imparted a phosphorescence to the pieces of touchwood and rotting leaves that lay about her path, which, as scattered by her feet, spread abroad like spilt milk. She would not run the hazard of losing her way by plunging into any short, unfrequented track through the denser parts of the woodland, but followed a more open course, which eventually brought her to the highway.
And then away went the little black-and-yellow fellow with his beautiful gauzy wings shining in the sun, and he flew over the garden wall, and was soon scooping away at a ripe golden-yellow plum that was hanging from the wall just ready to pick; and then off he flew again to his nest, where dozens more wasps were going in and out of the hole in a fallen willow-tree, all soft like touchwood, and in it the wasps had scooped out such a hole, where they had been working away quite as hard and industriously as the bees their cousins; and here they had made comb, and cells, and stored up food, and instead of their cells being made of wax, they were composed of beautiful paper that these busy little insects had made.
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