i.] OF THE ANCIENTS. 11 



directly to the branch, and in the other seated on 

 a footstalk, I must suspend my opinion on this 

 point until further proofs are forthcoming, and 

 for the present shall be content with supposing, 

 that both these names apply to species or varieties 

 of Oak of the largest size, and of the widest dis- 

 tribution throughout Europe. 



We next come to his Esculus, a name applied 

 by the moderns to a species of Oak found especially 

 in Tuscany, and furnishing acorns so sweet as to 

 be much eaten by the peasantry. In olden time 

 the acorn, as we read in Homer and Hesiod, was 

 the common food of the Arcadians, so that the 

 tree which yielded it must have been different 

 from the Oak of this country, the fruit of which 

 is bitter and distasteful. Yet Pliny tells us, that 

 the best and largest acorn is that which grows 

 upon the Quercus, and only the next to it in 

 quality on the Esculus. 



Some writers identify the latter with the Beech, 

 regarding it as a synonym for the Fagns of the 

 Latins, and the (frrjyos of the Greeks, which latter 

 name they suppose was derived from the fitness 

 of its fruit for food to man. The Beech-nut, in- 

 deed, is sweet and not unpalatable, so that in the 

 south of Europe it is eaten by man as well as 

 by beast. 



Virgil, in his 2nd Georg., describes the fisculus 

 thus : 



" Nemorumque Jovi quse maxima frondet 

 Esculus." 



