38 



THE HOLLY. 



to suffer from the lawless pilferer's hand. 

 When least expected, you find it arrested in its 

 growth. Its smaller branches by degrees lose 

 their vitality, and, by the end of the following 

 year, one half of the tree appears as though it 

 had received a blast from the passing thunder- 

 storm. This declining aspect of the holly has 

 been occasioned by the hand of sordid mischief. 

 It is well known that birdlime is produced from 

 its bark. In the spring of the year, at earliest 

 dawn of day, our finest holly trees in this 

 neighbourhood are stripped of large pieces of 

 their bark by strolling vagabonds, who sell it to 

 the nearest druggist. So common has this act 

 of depredation been in this vicinity, that I 

 should be at a loss to find a single holly tree, 

 in any hedge outside of the park wall, that has 

 escaped the knife of these unthinking spoilers. 



Some six or seven years ago, there stood in 

 the ornamented grounds of my baronet neigh- 

 bour a variegated holly of magnificent growth, 

 and it bore abundant crops of berries ; a cir- 

 cumstance not very frequent in hollies of this 

 kind. Many a half hour have I stood to admire 

 this fine production of nature; for it was un- 

 paralleled, in this part of Yorkshire, in beauty , 



