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fanciful illustration of the relative longevity of an 



oak is the exi)ression of a truth, namely the superiority 



of trees over animals in regard to the duration of 



life. As a seventeenth-century translator of Pliny's 



Natural History writes, ' In old times trees were the 



very temples of the gods : and according to that 



antient manner, the plaine and simple peasants of 



the country, savouring still of antiquity, do at this 



day consecrate to one God or other, the goodliest 



and fairest trees that they can meet withal.' Oaks 



growing in Pliny's day in the Hercynian forest are 



said to have been there 'ever since the creation of 



the world (4).' Sir Joseph Hooker, in an account 



of some Palestine oaks, gives a drawing of a famous 



tree at ^lamre, known as Abraham's Oak, which is 



supposed to mark the spot where the Patriarch 



pitched his tent (5). Examples such as these, 



though of no scientific value, serve to illustrate the 



well-founded -belief in the extraordinary longevity of 



trees. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it 



would be rash to deny the possibility that \yilliam 



the Conqueror's Oak in Windsor Forest, described 



by Loudon in his Arhoi'etmn Brltannicimi and 



mentioned by later writers, may be a survival from 



the reign of the king whose name it bears. Although 



it is seldom possible to state with confidence the 



exact age of old oaks and yews famed for length of 



days, there can be no doubt as to the enormous 



