176 gtlpin's l'orest scenery. 



ever, lie was convinced, not only by tlie testimony 

 of the country, and the accurate examination of 

 the Canon Recupero, a learned naturalist in those 

 parts, but by the appearance of the trees them- 

 selves, none of which had any bark on the inside. 

 This Chestnut is of such renown, that Brydone 

 tells us he had seen it marked in an old map of 

 Sicily, published a hundred years ago.* 



Among other authors who mention this tree, 

 Kircher gives us the following account of its con- 

 dition in his day, which might be about a century 

 befoi'o Brydone saw it : — ' Ostendit mihi vise dux, 

 unius castanias corticem, tantas magnitudinis, ut 

 intra earn integer pecorum grex, a pastoribus tan- 

 quam in caula commodissima, noctu interclude- 

 retur.' t From this account, one should imagine 

 that in Kircher' s days the five trees were more 

 united than when Brydone saw them. 



In his interesting work on Mount Etna, published last 



* See Brydone's Trav., vol. i. p. 117. 



t My guide showed me here, -what I can call only the shell, 

 or hark of a Chestnut tree, hut of such amazing circumference, 

 that one of the shepherds of the country used it as a fold for 

 a large flock of sheep. 



