CATKIN-JBEARING TRIBE 145 



ing Birch (var. pendida), in which all the bi'anches hang downwards. It is 

 frequent in the Scottish Highlands — 



' ' Where weeps the Birch with silver bark 

 And long dishevelled hair." 



It adorns, too, the rocky streams in North Wales, laving the tips of its 

 boughs in the stream. It is usually a larger tree than the common form, 

 which latter is not generally among the tallest of our woodland trees. The 

 drooping variety has most slender branches, sometimes thirty feet long, and 

 scarcely thicker than a packthread, so that they remind us of the old English 

 proverb, "Birchen twigs break no bones." 



In very favourable situations the Common Birch grows sixty or seventy 

 feet high, but a Birch-tree of even fifty feet in height is rare in England. 

 Far away on the landscape we may distinguish the Birch from all other trees 

 by its slender silvery trunk, which is usually straight, and its white cuticle 

 is in younger trees smooth and shining. In its more advanced stages, how- 

 ever, this outer skin is cleft; and many a crevice, extending even into its 

 inner bark, is made by the touch of time, while it is often tinted here and 

 there with pale yellow hues. The young twigs are of a uniform purple- 

 brown. Many poets, like Wordsworth, have alluded to its delicately-tinted 

 scaly stem : — 



" But now to form a shade. 

 For these green alders have together wound 

 Their foliage ; aspens flung their arms around, 

 And Birch-trees risen in silver colonnade." 



Beneath the outer bark lies the beautiful smooth Birch-bark, of a pale 

 cedar colour, which in Canada is made into so many ornamental boxes, 

 screens, and other articles, and embroidered with dyed porcupine-quills. 

 Country children, even in England, sometimes make very pretty little 

 baskets and vases of this material, and its surface is so smooth that it 

 receives writing made with a common pen and ink almost as well as does 

 tJie bark of the celebrated Canadian Birch-tree, of which Lowell says : 



" Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers ; 

 Thy white bark has their secrets in its kee2)ing." 



The inexpensiveness of writing-paper renders this bark of small im- 

 portance in this country. The author of these pages has, however, some- 

 times written little letters on Birch-bark, but has not been able to ascertain 

 that this material is ever so used, even in the most remote districts, by 

 country people. Charlotte Smith, referring to some of our woodland trees, 

 says : 



" The slender Birch its paper rind 



Seems oH'ering to divided love ; 

 And shuddering ev'n without a wind, 



Aspens tlieir paler foliage move, 

 As if some spirit of the air 

 Breathed a low sigh in passing there." 



This bark is one of the materials on which the ancients wrote, when as 

 yet the printing-press had not stamped for ever the record of thought. 



III. — 19 



