414 



ELYMUS EMBERIZA. 



profit it should be felled as soon as a load (fifty cubic 

 feet) or a load and a half of timber is computed to be 

 in the bole. Better it is to fell a few years too soon 

 than one too late. One invaluable property of the 

 English elm is its tendency to stool, that is, to pro- 

 duce suckers from the root, which fully compensates 

 for its want of seed. Where once a tree is planted, 

 particularly in hedge-rows, there it and its young 

 progeny will ever remain. And it is no uncommon 

 case that the same hedge-row has been felled from 

 by the grandfather, father, and son, and yet the last 

 cannot perceive any diminution in the number of his 

 trees. 



This tree is best propagated by layers. It is some- 

 times grafted on the common or witch elm ; but this 

 is a bad practice, because there can be no succession 

 of suckers of the right sort. 



Middlesex is famous for hedge-row elms ; and there 

 the trees are most unmercifully shreded, that is, trim- 

 med up and divested of all their side branches except 

 a few at the top. This, though it causes the timber 

 to be of a knotty unwedgable character, is apt to 

 induce internal decay from the numerous wounds in- 

 flicted on the surface, some of which, if not quickly 

 healed over, admit moisture which penetrates to the 

 centre, or allows a discharge of sap, a defect to which 

 the elm is very subject. 



There are several other species of elm, natives of 

 Britain and North America. The witch elm, a very 

 common sort, is of a more rambling growth than the 

 first, but the timber is less esteemed, though very 

 useful for many purposes in rural buildings and im- 

 plements. The cork-barked and Dutch elms are 

 admitted into our plantations for the sake of variety 

 only. The leaves are an ingredient in the " British 

 herb" tea, so much of which was lately condemned 

 and burnt by order of the commissioners of customs. 

 The inner bark of the elm, like that of many other 

 trees, has been, in times of scarcity, and still is com- 

 monly in the northern parts of Europe, ground into 

 powder and mixed with meal to make a coarse kind 

 of bread. The leaves form a good nourishing kind 

 of fodder, and in many parts of this island they are 

 given to cattle. 



ELYMUS (Linnaeus). A genus belonging to the 

 natural order Graminetz, containing above twenty spe- 

 cies, most of which are found in the northern hemi- 

 sphere. Three of them are common in England, and 

 called lyme-grass. One of them, E. arenarius, is cul- 

 tivated on the sea-coast for fixing drifting sands. 



ELYS I A (Risso). A genus of mollusks established 

 by Risso, and inhabiting the Mediterranean, but too 

 imperfectly known to be at present depended upon 

 from his description, and probably referable to some 

 genus already accurately described. 



EMARGINULA Lamarck; PATELLA FISSURA, 

 Linnaeus. Lamarck has constituted this genus of 

 molluscs from the confused genus of the Linnasan 

 patella. This shell is conical, more or less elevated, 

 and inclined to the anterior side, which is always the 

 least, and, opposite to the slit or fissure, elegantly 

 cancellated with longitudinal ribs and transverse striae, 

 a deep and narrow marginal fissure extending nearly 

 half-way to the summit ; the interior, with a muscular 

 horse-shoe impression, opens backwards, and is thicker 

 at its origin. Most of the shells of this genus are very 

 small, some are of an elevated, and others of a widely 

 depressed conical form. Lamarck only enumerates 

 two species, but more are now known. The animal 



has an oval body, the mantle furnished with very 

 delicate tentacula, placed round its circumference ; 

 slit more or less deep at the front part, for the com- 

 munication with a very large bronchial cavity, in 

 which the branchiae are distinctly visible. Taking the 

 marginal fissure and its position with regard to the 

 other parts of the shell, very distinct species may be 

 distinguished ; but it is scarcely necessary to enume- 

 rate them in this place, as they would only interest 

 those naturalists who seek more deeply for minute 

 distinctions than the generality of our readers are 

 supposed to require. These shells belong to the 

 second class Paracephalophora, second order Cervico- 

 branchiata, first family Retifera. 



EMBERJZA Bunting. A very numerous genus 

 of birds, belonging to Cuvier's great order, Passeres, 

 and to the Conirostral, or cone-shape billed division 

 of that order, of which, in as far as the form of the 

 bill is concerned, they are very typical. This genus 

 has been extended by some authors to include a vast 

 number of birds, especially foreign birds, which from 

 time to time were imported 1 in single specimens, 

 unaccompanied by any descriptions of their habit, and 

 named without much regard to the proper distinc- 

 tions of the buntings. Many of these, more espe- 

 cially the American ones, have been so well de- 

 scribed, and are so popularly known as buntings, 

 that we shall retain them, although strict regularity 

 of system would justify our describing them under 

 other names. 



Bunting. 



The general characters of (his genus are these : 

 bill very strong, short, straight, conical, compressed 

 in the sides, firm in the cutting edges, but without any 

 tooth or notch. The upper mandible narrower than 

 the under one, turned inward at the edges, and with a 

 hard or horny nob at the palatal end. It is in this 

 bill that the true character of the bunting consists ; 

 and every bird which has such a bill may be regarded 

 as a bunting, whatever may be its other characters. 

 This bill is well fitted for the breaking of shells or 

 the rinds of seeds, and ejecting them without losing 

 any of the farinaceous kernel, which, from the way 

 that the mandibles close, drops into the bill rather 

 than out of it. The wings are moderately long, the 

 second and third feathers being the longest, the tail 

 forked or lobed, and spreading out towards the 



