( 127 ) 



and to hear a heavy mower of rain defcending 

 through the feveral ftages of it's leaves. As 

 a naturalift, he left it on record, that himfelf 

 and eighteen other perfons, dined commodi- 

 oufly around the benches in the body of it. 



Caligula had a tree of the fame kind at 

 his villa near Velitras. But Caligula's tree 

 appears to have been more complex, than 

 the Lycian-plane. It had not only a hollow 

 cave in it's trunk, which was capable of 

 holding fifteen perfons at dinner with a pro- 

 per fuit of the emperor's attendants : but, 

 if I underftand Pliny rightly*, it had ftories 

 alfo (probably artificial flooring) in the 

 boughs of the tree. Caligula ufed to call 

 it, his neft. 



From the fame author we have an account 

 of four holm-trees-f-, ftill exifting in his 

 time, which were of great antiquity. Three 

 of them, he fays, flood upon the fite of 

 the ancient Tibur, which was a city older 



Lib. xii. c. i t Lib. xvi. c. 44. 



than 



