274* Reh'ospectivc Criticism, 



passage in Caesar's Commentaries * which would seem to confute my opi- 

 nions ; but I must aver that I conceive the author to have been either mis- 

 informed or little acquainted with the interior of the country. T. E. L., 

 your correspondent, vindicating this opinion of Caesar's, is confident that 

 the tree mentioned in the passage quoted is not the beech, but a species of 

 oak ; and this he strengthens by adducing passages from authors of anti- 

 quity, describing the fruit of the fagus as an article of food. That the fruit 

 of the oak was and is used as food, I know ; and also that the fruit of the 

 beech was not only formerly used as food, but is so to this day. The ker- 

 nels of the beech-nut are to this day, in some parts of France, ground and 

 made into bread ; and from the same nut an oil is extracted useful and 

 pleasant to the taste. Deer and swine have pastured upon beech-nuts from 

 the earliest ages. I should therefore rather interpret fagus, with several 

 learned expositors, the beech than the oak ; since the argument in favour of 

 its being the oak, from its fruit being mentioned as an article of food, I 

 think I have proved to be futile. But granting for a moment that fagus is 

 not the beech, but the oak ; if we allow T. E. L.'s argument, it will lead us 

 to the conclusion that the oak is not a native of Britain ; a conclusion which 

 I should hope all your readers know to be false. T. E. L.'s reasoning is 

 this : — Caesar was correct in saying that the fagus was not found in Bri- 

 tain J but Caesar's fagus is the oak, and not the beech ; therefore the oak 

 was not found in Britain. In describing the pearls found in England in the 

 time of Agricola, T. E. L. will not forget the fisheries of the Conway river, 

 which, if my memory fails not, has been productive of pearls from the 

 earliest times. I am, &c. — cc . Jamiari/f 1S31. 



Hares tatcing the Water. — Sir, Your correspondent (p. 143.) recommends 

 those who doubt the emigration fancies of the hare to visit the island of 

 Havergate, where they might have ocular demonstration of such an 

 extraordinary fact. Being rather sceptical on that point, I proposed taking 

 a journey thither : but as I am well acquainted with Mr. Edwards, the 

 proprietor of the island, I thought a little conversation with him upon the 

 subject would answer my purpose quite as well. That gentleman assures 

 me (to the best of his belief) that every hare upon Havergate Island was 

 either born there, or is one of the original stock sent there by himself for 

 the purpose of colonising the island ; he trusting to the formidable aqueous 

 barrier for their preservation. Mr. Edwards is an old sportsman, and is of 

 opinion hares will never voluntarily take to the water : he says your cor- 

 respondent must have very much misunderstood him. 



Naturalists have recorded an instance or two of extraordinary sagacity 

 shown by hares that have taken to the water, in cases of emergency, to 

 evade their pursuers ; but that they will swim backwards and forwards, as 

 it were for amusement, across a rapid stream of 200 yards in width, is 

 more, I suspect, than most naturalists will give credence to. " Not being 

 a fox-hunting or hare-coursing parson, I know but little about game ; " but 

 it is the first time I ever heard of any migratory propensity peculiar to 

 British animals, or that the quadrupeds of England had caught the mania 

 for crossing salt water from their biped superiors. — S. V. W. Woodbridge, 

 March y 183L 



Missel Thrush singing oti the Wing. — Sir, Your correspondent, who 

 signs himself " iScolopax rusticola," in p. 183., among other very just ob- 

 servations relative to thaLt amusing bird the missel thrush, remarks that he 

 has once in his life observed one to sing whilst hi the act of flying from one side 

 of a field to another ; "but," he adds, "it is a solitary instance, as I neither 

 observed it before nor since, and had they been in the habit of doing so, I 

 should most certainly have noticed it." I am inclined so far to agree with 



* " Materia cujusque generis praeter fagum et abietem," 



