THE ASH. 



141 



covered with leaves, than these are attacked by 

 such a number of cantharides, or Spanish-flies, 

 that the trees, during the remainder of the sum- 

 mer, have a dismal appearance ; and, though the 

 insect which devours the leaves may please the 

 eye by its elegant form, and its colours of green 

 and gold, yet it spreads abroad a smell which is so 

 disagreeable, that it causes the common Ash to be 

 excluded from^ our forests, where the flowering 

 Ash, and some of the American species, are alone 

 introduced ! M. PiroUe, in one of the early vo- 

 lumes of the Bon Jardinier^ m.entions that, even 

 when the cantharides are dead on the trees, they 

 become dried to a powder, which it is difficult to 

 pass the trees without inhaling. The particles of 

 this powder, being parts of the flies that cause 

 the blistering of the skin when a blister-plaster 

 is applied, are of course dangerous to persons who 

 inhale them; and on this account. Ash -trees are 

 never planted near villages in France." These 

 insects being never numerous in England, there 

 is no fear of any such results. 



Gilpin's remarks on the spray of the Ash are 

 well worth the attention of the artist. After 

 pointing out the peculiar character of the Oak, he 

 proceeds to say : " The spray of the Ash is very 

 different. As the boughs of the Ash are less 

 complex, so is its spray. Instead of the thick 

 intermingled bushiness which the spray of the 

 Oak exhibits, that of the Ash is much more 

 simple, running in a kind of irregular parallels. 

 The main stem holds its course, forming at the 

 same time a beautiful sweep ; but the spray does 

 not divide, like that of the Oak, from the extre- 

 mity of the last year's shoot, but springs from the 



