190 AMENTACE^ 



to be infested to an alarming extent by a species of Cynips, which appears to 

 have been previously unnoticed. Instead of attacking the leaves or iiower- 

 stalks, as is the habit of most other species of gall-fly, it lays its eggs in the 

 young twigs ; and the consequence is, that when the leaves have fallen, the 

 tree is found to be laden with globular galls, each about the size of a cherry, 

 some single, but more frecjuently in clusters. When the grubs which they 

 contain have reached maturity, they eat their way out, leaving the bald 

 bullet-galls on the twigs ; so that, all the winter, the Oak simulates a fruit- 

 tree, bearing a crop, however, most pernicious to itself, as the extremities of 

 all the tAvigs are found to have perished from exhaustion. Experiments have 

 been tried to discover whether the galls can be applied with profit to 

 manufacturing purposes. 



M. Duplat, a chemist attached to a military hospital, has lately succeeded 

 in procuring oil, and producing alcohol by distillation, from acorns growing 

 in the Oak-forests which cover Mount Atlas. Both the oil and alcohol have 

 been found to be perfectly suited for chemical purposes. 



9. Hazel (Curylus). 



Common Hazel (6'. avelldna). — Leaves roundish, heart-shaped, pointed, 

 downy beneath ; stipules oblong, blunt ; involucre of the fruit bell-shaped, 

 torn at the margin. AVhat English reader, country born and country reared, 

 is not familiar with the Hazel-tree — the tree whose pale, greenish yellow 

 catkins (Lambs'-tails as we called them) liung among the nosegays of blue- 

 bells and primroses, gathered in the spring of life and the spring-time of the 

 year 1 Earlier still in the season, and while the frosts of January were 

 spai'kling on the hedges, we have found the little crimson clusters of 

 brilliant stigmas in the scaly buds of the pistil-bearing flowers rewarding 

 our search, and unrivalled in brightness by any surrounding object, save 

 where, on some fallen bough, the fungus-cups were clustering, rich in their 

 lining of scarlet or crimson. In spring-time how many have found, like 

 Clare — 



" Dead leaves of Oak and Hazel-tree, 



The constant covering of all woody land ; 

 With tiny violets creeping plenteously, 



That one by one enticed the patient hand !" 



But it is not alone in spring that the Hazel-tree has its store of pleasures. 

 Well do the frisking squirrel and the creeping cheerful nut-hatch prize 

 the fruits of the Hazel — fruits which well deserve a place at the dessert, 

 though the cultivated fill^erts or the nuts of Spain are oftener seen there ! 

 Our Hazel-nut was called by the Anglo-Saxons hasehmtu — from hasel, a cup, 

 and hmtu, a nut. In later days nuts were spelt, as Chaucer wrote them, 

 " notes ;" and a prescription, written before our earliest bard had traced a 

 line, gives the same orthography. For a cold in the head, the patient was 

 directed — "Take small note kenneyls, and roost hem, and ete hem with a 

 lytyl powder of pepyr when thou gost to bed." Culpepper, who refers to 

 the use of nuts as a remedy for colds, quaintly says : " Why should the 

 vulgar so familiarly affirm that eating nuts causes shortness of breath, than 

 which nothing is falser 1 For how can that which strengthens the lungs 



