AND ROBERT MAR3IIAM. 240 



amours carryed on in pools and wet ditches in the spring time 

 are performed by/rog's, which are more black and bloated at 

 that season than afterwards. As to toads they seem to be 

 more reserved in their intrigues. 



With regard to the annual encrease of swallows, & that those 

 that return bear no manner of proportion to those that depart ; 

 it is a subject so strange, that it will be best for me to say 

 little. I suppose that nature, ever provident, intends the vast 

 encrease as a balance to some great devastations to which they 

 may be liable either in their emigrations or winter retreats. 

 Our swifts have been gone about a week ! but the other hi- 

 rundines have sent forth their first broods in vast abundance ; 

 & are now busied in the rearing of a second family. Myself 

 & visitors have often paid due attention to the oak in the Holt, 

 which ought indeed to have been noticed in my book, and 

 especially as it contains some account of that forest. You 

 have been an early planter indeed ! & may safely say, I should 

 think, that no man living can boast of so large an oak of his 

 own planting! As I had reason to suppose that actual mea- 

 surement would give me the best Idea of y r tree, I first took 

 the girth of my biggest oak, a single tree, age not known, in 

 the midst of my meadow : when tho' it carries a head that 

 measures 24 yards three ways in diameter, yet is the circum- 

 ference of the stem only 10 ft. 6 in. I then measured an oak, 

 standing singly in a Gent's outlet at about two miles distance, 

 & found it exactly the dimensions of your's. After such suc- 

 cess you may well say with Virgil, 



" Et dubitant homines severe, atque irnpendere curas ? " 



In an humble way I have been an early planter myself. 

 The time of planting, and growth of my trees are as follows. 

 Oak in 1731 4 ft. 5 in. Ash in 17314 ft, 6 in. Spruce 

 fir in 17515 ft, in. Beech in 17514 ft. in. Elm in 

 17505 ft. 3 in. Lime in 1756, 5 ft, 5 in.* Beeches with 



* [A more particular account of these trees, with a note on their 

 present condition, will be found at p. 468 of Vol. I. I am sorry to luive 

 to add that the fine spruce was, on the 20th of February of this \> -,T 

 (1877) , blown down, being uprooted in consequence of the softening of the 

 soil by the long-continued rains. T. B.] 



