BIOGRAPHY. 63 



the reader m ay not know that coming down a tree is a far 

 more difficult taslc than ascending it. In the latter case, 

 the climber can see his course, and note beforehand where 

 he shall place his hands and feet, while in descending he 

 has to trust partly to memory, and partly to touch. 



It is easy enough, for example, to spring for a few inches 

 from a lower to a higher branch, but to drop those few 

 inches is a very nervous business. I have more than once 

 seen a climber ascend a tree very boldly, and then be so 

 frightened that he could not be induced to come down 

 without some one to guide his feet. The same rule holds 

 good with precipices, where a man can always ascend 

 where he has descended without jumping, but not vice 

 versa. 



Even with trees, Waterton must needs have his joke. 

 AH the ; important trees in the park had their names. 

 There were, for example, the Twelve Apostles standing in 

 a group, all starting from one root, the Eight Beatitudes, 

 the Seven Deadly Sins, &c. Then there were an oak and 

 a Scotch fir twined together, and going by the name of 

 Church and State (see p. 64-). 



Yew was one of Waterton's favourite trees, and he was 

 accustomed to say that it would be perfect if its leaves 

 were only furnished with spikes sharp enough to keep out 

 the cats, stoats, weasels, and his pet abhorrence, the brown 

 rat, which he ahvays called the Hanoverian rat, and 

 stoutly believed was imported into England by the same 

 ship that brought William of Orange to our shores. I 

 rather fancy that the Hanoverian origin of the brown rat 

 must have been one of Waterton's early jokes, and that he 

 gradually came to consider it as a fact. The yew fur- 

 nishes harborage for many birds, which after all do 

 not seem to suffer much from four-footed enemies. The 



