THE OAK. 



79 



was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. 

 But when they arrived at the sweUing, it jutted 

 out so in their way, and was so far beyond their 

 grasp, that the most daring lads w^ere awed, and 

 acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazard- 

 ous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in 

 perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which 

 the wood was to be levelled. It was in the 

 month of February, when those birds usually sit. 

 The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were 

 inserted into the opening. The woods echoed to 

 the heavy blows of the beetle, or mallet ; the tree 

 nodded to its fall, but still the dam sat on. At 

 last, when it gave w^ay, the bird was flung from 

 her nest ; and, though parental affection deserved 

 a better fate, was whipped dowTi by the twigs, 

 which brought her dead to the ground."* 



The Oaks most remarkable for their horizontal 

 expansion, are, according to Loudon, the follow- 

 ing : " The Three-shire Oak, near Worksop, w^as 

 so situated, that it covered part of the three coun- 

 ties of York, Nottingham, and Derby, and drip- 

 ped over seven hundi'ed and seventy-seven square 

 yards. An Oak between Newnham Courtney 

 and Clifton shaded a circumference of five hun- 

 dred and sixty yards of ground, under which two 

 thousand four hundred and twenty men might 

 have commodiously taken shelter. The immense 

 Spread Oak in Worksop Park, near the white 

 gate, gave an extent, between the ends of its 

 opposite branches, of an hundred and eighty feet. 

 It dripped over an area of nearly three thousand 

 square yards, w^hich is above half an acre, and 

 would have afforded shelter to a regiment of 



* White's Natural History of Selbome. 



