PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



WATFOKD NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Oedinaky Meeting, 18th October, 1877. 



Alfred T. Brett, Esq., M.D., President, in the Chair. 



The President, on taking the Chair, stated that the meeting had 

 been deferred from the second Thursday in the month, the 11th 

 inst., owing to the Rev. Dr. (iee, who had consented to give the 

 opening lecture of the session, having had an engagement on that 

 evening. 



Mr. Henry Adcock, Queen's Road, Watford ; Mr. Oscar Clayton, 

 Grove Cottage, Heathbourne, Bushey Heath ; Mr. William Ransom, 

 Fairfield, Hitchin; Mr. George Stone, Cassio Bridge, Watford; and 

 Mr. George Turnbull, F.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., M.I.C.E., Rose Hill, 

 Abbots Langley, were elected Members of the Society. 



The following lecture was delivered : — 



"Famous Trees in Hertfordshire." By the Rev. Canon Gee, 

 D.D. {Vide page 1.) 



Mr. Matthew Moggridge said that he had always taken a great interest in 

 trees, had long practised both modes of measuring their height now Laid 

 before them, and could vouch for the accuracy and ease with which they could 

 be carried out without any abstruse calculations. The case of beheading trees 

 that had been alluded to recalled to his mind those beautiful oaks in Richmond 

 Park (Surrey). They were beheaded by order of George the Third, early in his 

 reign, to give them eventually a more picturesque appearance. They were 

 beautiful trees certainly, but the few which had escaped beheading were, to his 

 mind, much more beautiful, and for this amongst other reasons, that they were 

 more true to nature. 



The President said that he had requested Mr. Heather to measure the lime 

 tree at Cassiobury which Lord Essex had told him was the first lime tree planted 

 in this part of the country ; and he had found the circumference, at three feet 

 above the ground, to be 17 feet 10 inches, and the heiglit about 100 feet. He 

 suggested that the word " wych " in wych-elm might have been the name for a 

 coffin, as elm was used for making coffins, and he inquired as to the position of the 

 King and Queen beeches at Ashi-idge. 



Dr. Gee said that the beeches at Ashridge were on the right front of the 

 house. They might easily be identified, as they had a nimiber of names cut on 

 them. With regard to " wych " being a box for the dead, he could only say that 

 in the oldest quotation in which the word was mentioned it was as a box for 

 cheese. 



VOL. IL — PT. II. B 



