HARD WICKE'S S CIENCE - G O SSI P. 



125 



possesses points of beauty and interest which are not 

 easily surpassed by those of any other county, and 

 which entitle it to a place in the memory as a county 

 of singular beauty, well deserving the appellation 

 it has gained, "The Garden of England." Its 

 graceful swelling hills are everywhere mantled with 

 woods, sepia-tinted in winter, emerald -green in 

 spring ; fuller, deeper, and richer-hued in summer, 

 and splashed with purple, gold, and bronze in 

 autumn. It would, indeed, be difficult to say at 

 what season of the year they are most attractive. 



* 



m 



Fig. 86. Imago of 



Hylisimis fraxini, 



natural size. 



KN 



Fig. 87. ditto 

 magnified. 



Fig. 83. Larva 

 of ditto. 



Fig. 85. Tracks of Hylisin ws 

 fraxini. 



Fig. 89. General form of 

 main track or channel. 



Many of these woods are devoted to the growth 

 of a kind of underwood for the sake of hop-poles, 

 faggots, &c. They are allowed to grow for a period 

 of about seven years, and are then cut down ; the 

 trees are lopped to within a foot or two from the 

 ground. This frequently-repeated act of cutting down 

 causes the stumps to assume the most fantastic and 

 picturesque appearances. They are often decorated 

 with an elegant drapery of clematis, ivy, black 

 briony, briony, and other climbing plants, and the 

 graceful polypody hangs its waving tufts from their 

 wrinkled sides. Among the trees so grown may be 

 enumerated the horn-bram, hazel, chestnut, ash, 

 white-bram, oak, cherry, maple, &c, so that the 



woods present considerable variety to the wanderer. 

 Beneath their shade grows a great selection of wild 

 plants, decorating the earth as with a coloured 

 carpet. During April these woods are gay with 

 anemone, primrose, cardamine, two or three species 

 of viola, and the golden pilewort ; while a little 

 searching discovers beautiful cushion-like masses of 

 Adoxa vioschatcllina, the tropical-looking spurge- 

 laurel, with its hanging clusters of yellow-green 

 sweetly-scented bells. The curious, unhealthy-looking 

 Lathrcza squamaria, growing from the roots of the 

 hazel, and other trees, upon which it is parasitic, 

 trailing branches of ground-ivy, and the sweetly 

 pretty Oxalis acetosella. 



The faggots brought to our doors for lighting fires 

 contain specimens of all the trees above mentioned, 

 and many an interesting botanical lesson may be 

 gathered from their examination. The nature of the 

 bark, the formation and arrangement of the buds, 

 the peculiar scars left by the falling leaves, and other 

 points, may be well studied from these. When winter 

 winds are howling round, and torrential rains are 

 drenching the earth, we may well fly to the study of 

 such objects as these for recreation and instruction. 



About the end of the month of June I had occasion 

 to hunt through one of these faggots in search of a 

 stick for the amusement of one of my children. I 

 picked up a straight branch of ash, which appeared 

 just to suit my purpose, and commenced to cut and 

 trim it. To my surprise, although looking perfectly 

 fresh and sound, I found the bark almost completely 

 separated from the wood below, and the space between 

 the two filled with a fine sawdust-like powder. 

 Fixing my attention a little more closely upon the 

 twig, I now noticed that the bark appeared as if 

 riddled with small shot, as shown in the upper part 

 of fig. 85. On stripping the bark, and blowing away 

 the dust alluded to, I detected a groove, originating 

 below a leaf-scar, which, after passing under the scar, 

 branched off in opposite directions, as seen in fig. 85. 

 Springing from these grooves were now clearly 

 discernible a great number of shallow channels, sepa- 

 rated from each other by the merest film of wood ; 

 each channel widening out in proportion to its dis- 

 tance from the main groove. At the end of each of 

 these branching channels I found a small, fat, active 

 little grub busily engaged extending its passage, the 

 wood forming its food. I now, of course, saw at a 

 glance the meaning of all this loose dust and apparent 

 rottenness, and the origin of these main and lateral 

 canals. It appeared quite clear that the main ducts 

 were made by some insect, that eggs were deposited 

 at minute intervals, on both sides of these tracts, that 

 these eggs were finally hatched out, that the grubs 

 so resulting immediately commenced feeding, tra- 

 velling continually away from the centre, and that as 

 they waxed in stature they necessarily enlarged their 

 tracts. 



Having proceeded thus far in my discoveries, and 



