THE WOODS. 



167 



spots great beeches are wreathed pillars of living green, 

 very picturesque indeed if seen at a distance through 

 openings of vista between the trunks, like the ivied bat- 

 tlements of ancient ruins; elsewhere 

 the vine trails along the ground, 

 snake-like, across the matted leaves, 

 or cushions the remains of some 

 old prostrate veteran; in still other 

 moods it clambers industriously 

 over a young maple or a broad- 

 leaved mulberry, seeking even the 

 outermost twigs everywhither, and 

 nodding airly above them, in a can- 

 opy that aflfords a lovely, shady sol- 

 itude, like the bowers formed by 

 the wild grape. 



The beeches are the most inter- 

 esting of the trees. What huge 

 limbs they have, sometimes all 

 twisted and bent and gnarled to- 

 gether, and yet spreading and 

 drooping finally into long, low- 

 trailing, fan-like sprays — the eye 

 lashes of the forest. Was it Thor- 

 eau who said that no tree had "so 

 fine a bole or so fair an instep as 

 the beech?" Gilpin, in describing 

 the beech, says of its bark: "It is 

 naturally of a dingy olive; but it is 

 always overspread in patches with a variety of mosses 

 and lichens, which are commonly of a lighter tint, in 



TWIN SISTERS. 



