56 S Y L V A BOOK i 



work, and even for some mathematical instruments 

 of the larger size, to be had either in, or near the 

 roots of many trees ; however 'tis a kindness to pre- 

 monish stewards and surveyors, that they do not 

 negligently wast those materials : Nor may we here 

 omit to mention tables for painters, which heretofore 

 were us'd by the most famous artists, especially the 

 curious pieces of Raphael, Durer, and Holbin, and 

 before that of canvass, and much more lasting : To 

 these add the galls, misletoe, polypod, agaric (us'd in 

 antidotes) uvae, fungus's to make tinder, and many 

 other useful excrescencies, to the number of above 

 twenty, which doubtless discover the variety of 

 transudations, percolations and contextures of this 

 admirable tree ; but of the several fruits, and animals 

 generated of them, and other trees, Francisco Redi 

 promises an express Treatise, in his Esperienze intorno 

 alia Generatione de gf Insetti^ already publish'd. Pliny 

 affirms, that the galls break out all together in one 

 night, about the beginning of June, and arrive to 

 their full growth in one day ; this I should recom- 

 mend to the experience of some extraordinary vigilant 

 wood-man, had we any of our oaks that produc'd them, 

 Italy and Spain being the nearest that do : Galls are 

 of several kinds, but grow upon a different species of 

 robur from any of ours, which never arrive to any 

 maturity ; the white and imperforated are the best ; 

 of all which, and their several species, see Jasp. 

 Bauhinus, and the excellent Malpighius, in his 

 Discourse de Gallis^ and other morbous tumors, raised 

 by, and producing insects, infecting the leaves, stalks 

 and branches of this tree with a venomous liquor or 

 froth, wherein they lay and deposite their eggs, 

 which bore and perforate these excrescences, when 



