LONG-EARED OWL IVY. 93 



chance, as there used to be, of some huge son of 

 the forest, whose premature decay perhaps had 

 escaped the notice of the woodman, affording an 

 asylum to this bird, and the same cause has 

 tended to diminish the numbers of the whole fa- 

 mily of woodpeckers, and of the long-eared owl 

 (Otus vulgaris), which used to build its nesl in 

 the dense masses of ivy with which the more aged 

 trees were clothed. In the utilitarian spirit of the 

 present day, which repudiates all perception of 

 the picturesque, these survivors of centuries have 

 been grubbed up and condemned as cumberers of 

 the ground; and an erroneous idea having been 

 propagated that ivy is injurious to the growth of 

 timber trees, as tending to absorb a portion of the 

 sap from the bark which it encircles although it 

 is through its own root alone, which is in the 

 ground, that the plant derives any nourishment* 

 we see trees which a few years ago were clothed 

 with perennial masses of ivy, now covered with 

 brown patches of its dead and decaying leaves, 

 and on a closer inspection perceive the fatal 

 wound where the unrelenting bill-hook of the 

 woodman had severed the bole of the beautiful 

 evergreen. 



* For a triumphant defence of the ivy, see Waterton's 

 Essays, 2nd. series, p. 68. 



