54 Fruits and Fruit-Trees . 



even yet. Its favourite haunts are woods and the banks 

 of streams and rivers, where it can lean over the water. 

 Very specially does it love the rocky sides of little 

 cascades. Still more congenial is the exposed mountain- 

 slope, where it may often be seen alone, " a silent spirit 

 of the solitude." Hence the common English name. In 

 Forfarshire it is found at a height of two thousand five 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea, yet it nourishes 

 equally well close to the shore. In England there are 

 few spectacles of the kind more striking than the Rowans 

 along the Trent Valley line of railway when the fruit is 

 ripe. In Scotland how charming, again, the slopes above 

 the Crinan Canal, where these beautiful trees have for 

 their handmaids the innumerable lady-fern. 



THE SERVICE, OR "WITTEN PEAR-TREE" 

 (Pyrus domestica). 



THE Service, though little known, is a tree, like the 

 mountain-ash, of singular interest. In many points it 

 closely resembles the mountain-ash : the leaves are simi- 

 lar, only that they have fewer and deeper serratures, and 

 are more flocculent while young ; the flowers, also, are 

 much the same. But the bulk and the stature it is 

 capable of attaining are considerably greater; it grows 

 more slowly while young ; it lives much longer, and the 

 fruit is altogether different. In shape it resembles a little 

 pear, or sometimes a little apple. The skin is reddish or 



