OF SELBORNE. 541 



settled again in heaps on the shingles ; where preening 

 their feathers, and lifting up their wings to admit the rays 

 of the sun, they seemed highly to enjoy the warm situation. 

 Thus did they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their 

 migration, and as it were consulting when and where they 

 are to go ! The flight about the church consisted chiefly of 

 house martins, about 400 in number : but there were other 

 places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same 

 time. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their 

 assemblies on trees. Such sights as these fill me with en- 

 thusiasm, and make me cry out involuntarily, 



" Amusive birds ! say where your hid retreat, 

 When the frost rages, and the tempests beat ! " 



We have very great oaks here on absolute sand. For 

 over Wolmer Forest, at Bramshot Place, where I visit, I 

 measured last summer three great hollow oaks, which made 

 a very grotesque appearance at the entrance of the ave.nue, 

 and found the largest twenty-one feet in girth at five feet 

 from the ground. The largest sycamore in my friend's 

 court measures thirteen feet. His edible chestnuts grow 

 amazingly, but make (for some have been felled) vile shaky, 

 cup-shaky timber. 2 I think the oak on sands is shaky, as 

 it is also on our rocks, as I know by sad experience the last 

 time I built. The indented oaken leaf which you gathered 

 between Eome and Naples was the quercus cerris of Linnaeus. 3 

 The yellow oak which you saw in Sussex escaped my notice. 



Richard Muliman Trench Chiswell, Esq., of Portland 

 Place, and M.P., tells a friend of mine in town that he has 

 an elm in Essex for which he has been bid 100. It is 

 long enough, he says, to make a keel ungrafted for a man- 

 of-war of the largest dimensions. As he expressed a desire 



1 These original lines occur in " The Naturalist's Summer Evening 

 Walk," which White dedicated to Pennant, see p. 83. ED. 



2 See note 3, to the first letter of the present series, p. 530. ED. 



3 This, the Turkish oak, was introduced into this country about a 

 century ago, from the south of Europe, and is now much planted as an 

 ornamental tree. ED. 



