10 THE OAK. 



now and then, as in the case of the crossbill and the fir, do we find any 

 direct consociation. For trees are to birds what the ocean is to the 

 nations of earth, free to the visits of all in turn, and witnessing, every- 

 day, new arrivals and new departures. The oak, however, is emphati- 

 cally of this nature, and the absence of any particular visitant renders 

 the grand old hospitality of the oak to the feathered tribes even more 

 remarkable, perhaps, than did any particular species of bird show a 

 preference for it. In the welcome it extends to them, we see over again 

 why the oak should be the king of trees, for herein it corresponds with 

 the princes and patricians of human nature, who are the men that 

 possess hospitable minds, giving kindly hearing to all ideas, and a 

 welcome to everything that may hold within it the soul and seed of 

 truth. The idea and speculations, the theories and hypotheses, that 

 float about the atmosphere of human intellectual life, are to the little 

 world of man just what the birds are to the physical atmosphere ; the 

 wise man gives a courteous ear to all, and leaves it to fools to reject 

 and condemn before they have listened. Nothing is ever got by shutting 

 one's self up in a creed. It is better to have an excess of faith than too 

 little. The Evil One likes no intrenchment better than that which he 

 finds in the incredulities of pride and ignorance. 



Insects are to the oak a supplement so enormous, that were the 

 tree to be blotted out, the entomologist would weep. Those lovely 

 creatures that sail on painted pinions, the butterflies, in many kinds ; 

 beetles, and a multitude of little creeping things that none but the 

 enthusiast is aware of, flock to it, and abide or lodge upon it ; and 

 when an oak-tree is felled, it is an earthquake to them. To the casual 

 observer this wonderful insect-population is of necessity not obvious. 

 But no one can help noticing the certificate and result of its presence. 

 We have it in the odd productions termed oak-apples ; also in galls, and 

 in those beautiful yellowish-rusty spangles which in autumn crowd the 

 under-surfaces of the leaves, and look like the "fairies' money" of a 

 fern. Oak-apples, the most conspicuous and familiar of these adventi- 

 tious productions, have nothing in them, as was once supposed, of the 

 nature of fruit. They receive their name simply from the rude resem- 

 blance they bear in colour and figure to the juicy produce of the 

 orchard, and essentially are nothing more than masses of extravasated 

 sap, dried and consolidated by exposure to the atmosphere. They 

 originate in the instinctive actions of a little insect, which punctures 

 the bark or skin, usually selecting a bud, and deposits her eggs in the 

 wound ; in consequence of this, some peculiar and abnormal vital action 



