THE CULTIVATION OF THE OAK 155 
Of other animals which injure oaks I may mention 
the various cattle, which bite off or rub the bark and 
buds; hares, squirrels, mice, &c., which nibble roots and 
buds and destroy the acorns, &c.; and a few birds; and 
certain beetles, which bore into the wood. 
- Among the pests belonging to the vegetable king- 
dom the following may be selected from a large 
number. The honeysuckle occasionally twists tightly 
round the young stem, and in course of time so com- 
presses the cortex that the formative materials from the 
leaf-crown have to pass in a spiral course between the 
coils of the strangling plant, and the tightly-squeezed 
parts may be starved as the tree thickens, and even the 
death of the cambium may follow, especially if one or 
two of the honeysuckle coils come to lie nearly horizon- 
tally round the stem. | 
Asa rare event the mistletoe is found on the oak. 
A much commoner parasite of the same family is 
Loranthus ewropeeus, which does considerable damage to 
oaks in some parts of Hurope. The sticky seeds are 
carried into the trees by thrushes. Here they germi- 
nate, and send their roots, or haustorial strands, into 
the cortex of a branch as far as the cambium, where 
they spread and feed on the contents of the young 
wood- and cambium-cells, causing malformations of the 
injured branch at the spot attacked owing to the hyper- 
trophy of the tissues, to which abnormal quantities of 
food materials now flow (fig. 41); and frequently 
bringing about the death of the upper parts of the 
