288 SYLVAN WINTER. 



tudinis, ut intra earn integer pecorum grex, a 

 pastoribus tanquam in* caula commodissima, 

 noctu intercluderetur." (My guide showed me 

 here, what I can call only the shell, or bark of a 

 Chestnut tree, but of such amazing circumference, 

 that one of the shepherds of the country used it as 

 a fold for a large flock of sheep.) From this 

 account, one should imagine that in Kircher's 

 days the five trees were more united than when 

 Brydone saw them.' * 



A Chestnut at Riccarton, in the county of Edin- 

 burgh, is mentioned by Sir T. D. Lauder as 

 extending, in 1834, over an area of seventy-seven 

 feet in diameter, and measuring twenty-seven feet 

 in girth at the ground. The Chestnut in the 

 park of Cobham Hall, figured by Mr. Strutt, was 

 thirty-five feet two inches in circumference at 

 the ground, twenty -nine feet at three feet from 

 the ground, thirty-three feet at twelve feet from the 

 ground, and forty feet at the point where the stem 

 divided. Larger still was the Chestnut at Fin- 

 haven, in Forfarshire. In 1744 the attested 

 measurement was, at half a foot above the ground, 

 * 'Forest Scenery,' pages 175 6. 



