114 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



flowers each and pendant on slender drooping stems, while 

 the pistil bearers, on a short erect stem, are generally only 

 two together and within a globular mass of small and 

 narrow scales that ultimately develop into the prickly husk 

 that, as we see in our drawing, presently opens into four 

 lobes and thus liberates the fruit. In the upper part of 

 our illustration we see this husk just preparing to open, 

 and in the lower it is fully extended. This illustration 

 was made, we see by our diary, on October nth. As the 

 fertile flowers are normally in pairs, the nuts, too, are in 

 pairs. 



The fruit, known as beech-nut, or beech-mast, is 

 very sharply three-sided, and contains a sweet, oleaginous 

 kernel.^ In the lower part of our drawing we have 

 given two views of one of these nuts. They are fairly 

 palatable. It is said that if " eaten in great quantities 

 they occasion headaches and giddiness," but one cannot 

 imagine any one indulging to this extent. They have 

 been sometimes dried and ground into meal for bread, 

 but their great popularity is found not in this direction 

 at all, but as the eagerly sought food of deer, pigs, badgers, 

 squirrels, dormice, ring-doves, pigeons, pheasants, and 

 other creatures that hold in the time of mast harvest high 

 festival.- An oil, that is said to equal in flavour the best 

 olive oil, with the great advantage of keeping longer 

 without becoming rancid, is obtained by pressure in 



' The beech, of oily nuts prolific. — The Task. Cowper. 



' With these kernels mice and squirrels are greatly delighted, who do 

 mightily encrease by feeding thereon : Swine also be fatned herewith and 

 certaine other beasts : also Deere do feed thereon very greedily : they be 

 likewise pleasant to Thrushes and Pigeons. — The Historie of Plantes. 

 Gerard. 



