HARDWICK&S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



79 



important detail with mine. I am further informed 

 by Mr. Western, that he and Mr. Chapman, whilst 

 very recently examining a specimen (I presume from 

 Esher) have found the larger plate to be the ventral. 



A moment's consideration of the peculiar and 

 unusual structure of the lorica and of the confusing 

 appearances produced by each change of position of 

 the living animal, enables one easily to comprehend 

 how such an experienced and so careful an observer 

 as Mr. Gosse might possibly have been deceived in 

 his interpretation of such difficult characters. 



In any case, his species Diplois propatula must 

 remain on the list, albeit I take it to be somewhat 

 doubtful. 



In the February issue of Science-Gossip appears 

 a notice by Dr. Barnett Burn of Diplois propatula. I 

 should have judged that his specimens were similar 

 to mine but that he follows Mr. Gosse, in showing 

 the larger plate as the dorsal. 



37 Brooke Road, N. 



JOTTINGS CONCERNING CERTAIN FRUIT 

 TREES. 



By Mary B. Morris. 



Part VI. — The Chestnut Tree {Castanea 

 vesca). 



THIS tree, said to derive its name from the town 

 of Casthanea, at the foot of Mount Pelion — a 

 locality where it still abounds — has a very widely 

 extended natural habitat, being found apparently 

 wild in extremely distant regions of the earth. 

 There are whole forests of it in most of the moun- 

 tainous regions of the temperate zone, around the 

 Caspian Sea, in Portugal, Algeria, and on the 

 frontiers of Tunis, whilst in America it is found wild 

 in great abundance in the high mountainous parts of 

 Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia ; but no 

 further north than New Hampshire. Some there 

 are who maintain that the American species is a 

 different one from that growing in Europe ; but there 

 seems to be but little ground for this opinion. 



The Romans in Pliny's time were wont to count 

 eighteen varieties of chestnut, but they accounted the 

 best those trees which came from Sardis and from 

 the Neapolitan country ; and, according to this 

 writer, the chestnut was sometimes called by the 

 Greeks the " Sardian acorn," because it was first 

 introduced to them from Sardis. It had also another 

 name given it, at a rather later date, namely that of 

 " Dios balanion," Jove's acorn, but this was after the 

 fruit had been greatly improved by cultivation. 

 Besides this, the Romans called what seems to have 

 been another variety, with a roundish fruit, Balanitis 

 or acorn chestnut. By all we can gather from ancient 

 authors, both Greeks and Romans held the fruit in 

 high esteem as food, and valued the tree also for its 



timber. Chestnut trees often attain to a great age 

 as well as gigantic size. In proof of the former 

 statement, it may be mentioned that some of the vcr 

 trees with which Pliny was familiar are believed to 

 be still in existence ; there being forests of wild sweet 

 chestnuts on Mount Etna, many trees amongst them 

 bearing evidence of great age, and being remarkable 

 for their enormous size ; notably one, known as 

 "the hundred-horse chestnut," a name given to ii 

 from its being capable of containing a hunched 

 mounted men within its hollow— its circumference 

 measuring above one hundred and sixty feet. 



In the Department of Cher, near Sancerre, are 

 also some very large and ancient specimens of this 

 tree ; one which, from records still existing, was, 

 above six hundred years ago, known as "the great 

 chestnut," and at six feet from the ground measurer! 

 above thirty feet across, was, a few years since, 

 reported quite sound. The age of this tree is com 

 puted to be at least a thousand years. Pliny evidently 

 looked upon the fruit rather as a " much ado about 

 nothing," since he writes of it, "The chestnut has its 

 armour of defence, in a shell bristling with prickles 

 like the hedgehog. ... It is really surprising that 

 nature should have taken such pains thus to conceal 

 an object of so little value ; we sometimes find as 

 many as three nuts beneath an outer shell. . . . Chest- 

 nuts are most pleasant eating when roasted ; they are 

 sometimes ground also, and eaten by women when 

 fasting for religious scruples, as bearing some resem- 

 blance to bread." We read of other kinds as being 

 grown to feed pigs ; but in all probability these were 

 the horse-chestnuts. We glean some amusing 

 directions with regard to the propagation of the tree, 

 which we are told may be reproduced from the nut, 

 the largest only being suitable for sowing, and then 

 only in "heaps of five." They are to be planted 

 with twelve inches between them every way, and the 

 holes in which they are placed should be nine inches 

 every way. There seems to have been considerable 

 pains taken at the period referred to for the improve- 

 ment of the fruit. One account says, " We must not 

 omit here one very singular circumstance. Corellius, 

 a member of the Equestrian order at Rome, native 

 of Ateste, grafted a chestnut in the territory of 

 Neapolis with a slip of the same tree, and from this 

 was produced the Corellian chestnut, which is so 

 highly esteemed, and from him has derived its name. 

 At a later period, his freedman Etereius grafted the 

 Corellian chestnut afresh. There is this difference 

 between the two — the Corellian chestnut is more 

 prolific, the Etereian of superior quality." The 

 chestnut tree was valued then as now for its poles — 

 the wood being said to be better than any for "stays 

 or poles for vines," being more durable than any, 

 and " the tree will shoot again." Columella directs 

 that chestnuts be sown thickly, to prevent accidents, 

 and where plantations of them are made by seed now 

 this precaution is taken, in order to provide against 



