CATKIN-BEARING TRIBE 189 



made at that period, a piece of lead nailed to it to indicate this opinion. 



Our limits will scarcely allow of more than a reference to the large Oak of 



Wootton, in Buckinghamshire — that most magnificent of trees, whose great 



branches cover an area of 150 feet in diameter; to the Chenies Oak, older 



than the Norman Conquest ; to the grand old Combermere Oaks, near 



Nantwich, or those venerable trees which have for centuries borne the blasts 



which rush over bleak Dartmoor. The noble old Fairlop Oak, spreading over 



a space Avhose diameter is 300 feet ; Sir Philip Sidney's Oak at Penshurst ; 



Pope's Oak in Windsor Forest ; the grand Cowthorpe Oak, with its trunk 



sixty feet in cii'cumference, and its boughs spreading over an area of half an 



acre, and many another tree, have all served as themes to painters, engravers, 



historians, poets, and lovers of Nature ; and the Oak at Yardley Chase, 



which is said to be as old as the period of the Conqueror, suggested to 



Cowper such thoughts as might have been suggested by many an aged 



compeer : — 



" Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all 

 That once lived here, thy brethren ; at my birth, 

 (Since which I number threescore winters past,) 

 A shatter'd veteran, hollow-trunk'd perhaps, 

 As now, and with excoriate forks deform ; 

 Kelic of a,i;ef3 ! could a mind, imbued 

 With trutli from Heaven, created things adore, 

 I might with reverence kneel and worship thee. 



' ' Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball 

 Which babes might play with : and the thievish jay, 

 Seeking his food, with ease might have purloin'd 

 The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down 

 Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, 

 And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp. 



" Who lived when thou wast such 1 Oh, couldst thou speak, 

 As in Dodona once thy kindred trees 

 Oracular ! I would not, curious, ask 

 The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth. 

 Inquisitive, the less ambiguous past." 



Various kinds of gall are found on the Oak, and are caused by several 

 species of Cynips. These insects puncture the leaf bud, or stem, in order to 

 place their eggs within its substance ; and introducing at the same time a 

 liquid which is noxious to the vegetable, and disturbs its circulation, 

 originate spongy, shining, or woolly excrescences. Sometimes the bud is 

 thus transformed into a hoplike object ; sometimes little glossy round balls, 

 or flat circular red patches, stud the leaves; clusters of strange-looking 

 objects, resembling barnacles, appear on the bark ; or the brown spongy oak- 

 apples, like balls of leather, stand upon the boughs. Those long-celebrated 

 Bitter Apples of Sodom, which look beautiful in their violet tint but turn to 

 dust when crushed, are now found to be galls growing on the dwarf Oaks of 

 difterent countries. Josephus, as well as other ancient writers, refers to 

 them ; and most, from their very childhood, have learned to listen with 

 wonder to the accounts of — 



"Those Dead Sea fruits which please the eye, 

 And turn to ashes on the lips." 



It is not many years since the Oaks in the west of England were found 



