50 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



And beautiful Gravina^ it shall be 



Thine for one rosy kiss — I know the ivied tree." 



Wiffen's Garcilasso. 



Mr. Brooke remarks that it is curious, in travelling 

 northward, to observe the gradual diminution in the size 

 of the Birch-tree, " till from a tree, it assumes, in the 

 higher latitudes, the appearance of a dwarf shrub, seldom 

 rising higher than a few feet above it*." 



The Birch, nevertheless, bears a degree of cold in 

 which few other trees will grow : that and the fir tree 

 are among the most hardy, — and happy is it for the 

 peasants of Sweden, Norway, &c., that they are so. 

 Browne justly terms this tree 



" The cold-place loving Birch." 



The Canada Birch, Betula lenta, will grow sixty feet 

 high or more. A liquor flows from it, when wounded, 

 which is drunk in Kamtschatka without fermentation : 

 with the wood they build sledges and canoes, and con- 

 vert the bark into food by stripping it off when green, 

 cutting it into long narrow pieces, drying it, and stewing 

 it with their caviar. 



Very pretty baskets are made of the twigs ; the bark 

 serves to write upon, and may be made into books. 



The Black Virginian Birch, Betula nigra, is as large of 

 growth as the Canada species. 



* Brooke's Sweden^, p. 56. 



