ZOO STUDIES OF NATURE. 



their decay is by no means regulated in confor- 

 mity to that of their growth ; neither is that of 

 their fecundity proportioned to their weaknefs, to 

 climates, or to feafons, as fome have pretended. 

 Pliny * quotes inftances of holmes, of plane-trees, 

 and of cypreffes, which exifted in his time, and 

 which were more ancient than Rome, that is, more 

 than feven hundred years old. He farther tells 

 us, that there were ftill to be feen near Troy, 

 around the tomb of Ilus, oaks which had been 

 therefrom the time that Troy took the name of 

 Ilium, which carries us back to an antiquity much 

 more remote. 



I have feen, in Lower Normandy, in a village 

 church-yard, an aged yew, planted in the time of 

 William the Conqueror ; it is flill crowned with 

 verdure, though it's trunk cavernous, and through 

 and through pervious to the day, refembles the 

 flaves of an old cafk. Nay, there are bufhes which 

 feem to have immortality conferred upon them. 

 We find, in many parts of the kingdom, haw- 

 thorns, which the devotion of the Commonalty has 

 confecrated by images of the Virgin, and which 

 have lafted for feveral ages, as may be afcertained 

 by the infcriptions upon the chapels which have 

 been reared in the vicinity. 



* Natural Hiftory, book xvi. chap. 44. 



But, 



