OAKS IN SCOTLAND. 209 



variegation, though completely local, is very persistent, and has 

 continued now for years. The interest in this odd freak of nature 

 is further increased by the presence (gradually disappearing) of 

 an old bell, which, in former times, was suspended between two 

 of the limbs, but which is being stealthily and quietly overgrown, 

 and embedded in the development of the limbs, and must ere 

 ]ong be entombed in its living sepulchre ! But in no part of 

 the tree-growing and tree-loving county of Perth are better 

 examples to be found of the oak as well as of other hard- wooded 

 trees than at the Athole woods surrounding Dunkeld. Although 

 the ancient forest of Birnam Wood has never quite recovered 

 the famous march of its ancestors to Dunsinane, many thriving 

 plantations are rapidly clothing the hillsides, while still a few 

 remnants of the old aboriginal trees, and others planted fully 

 two centuries ago, remain to testify to the magnificent proportions 

 of those early plantations, wdiich in the course of time and 

 nature have gradually given way to younger followers. Xear 

 the river T;iy at Birnam, and behind the hotel, may still be seen 

 two immense trees, an oak and sycamore, popularly credited as 

 being the sole remnants of that celebrated forest. Both are in 

 full foliage and green vigour at the present day, and likely to 

 live for niany years to come. The sycamore having been already 

 noticed in the foregoing chapter on that tree, we now briefly 

 refer to the oak. It is 19 feet 7 inches in girth at 5 feet from 

 the ground, and grows in a good deep alluvial loamy soil, on 

 gravel subsoil, quite close to the river Tay. Other remains of 

 decayed oak root stumps have been frequently found in the 

 vicinity, no doubt relics of that great primeval forest which so 

 disturbed the peace of Macbeth. AVitliin the Dunkeld policies 

 are many large and interesting examples of oak trees, and of 

 these we are able, from personal observation, to give a few 

 records. In the'' King's Park " in the policies at Dunkeld, an 

 oak flourishes near the river side which girths at its narrowest 

 point, 4 feet from the ground, 15 feet 21 inches, and at :'» feet 

 from the ground, it is 15 feet 8i inches in circumference. It 

 has a line bole of 12 feet, and then branches into five huge limbs, 

 each of them being the size of any ordinary tree. Its spread of 

 branches measures 99 feet in diameter. On the opposite bank 

 of the Tay from the point where this oak grows, is seen the 

 famous oak under whose kindly shade the celebrated Neil Oow 

 was in the habit of retiring with his violin, and where tradition 

 reports he composed some of his finest pieces. This tree is 

 pointed out as" Neil Gow's Oak." 



" Fanioiip Neil, 

 The man that jilayt-*! the tiiklle weel." 



This celebrated fiddler died in 1808, in the romantic little 

 Ihamlet of Inver, not far westward from the site of the oak now 







