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THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



the home-grown crop, the chief pensioners on which are squirrels, who not 

 only feed upon them in the season, but with commendable forethought store 

 away quantities for future needs. A lively bird — the nuthatch — derives its 

 common name from its predilection for nuts as its favourite food. Its mode 

 of cracking its nuts is curious, it cunningly inserts a nut in the bark of a 

 rugged tree, or a fissure in an old stump or gate-post, and then, by a few 

 well-directed blows of its strong wedge-like bill, it fractures the shell and 

 feasts upon the kernel. Another guest of the hazel, and of whom it can be 

 literally said " the whole thing is in a nutshell/' is the fat grub of a beetle, the 

 eggs of which are laid in the young ovary, and the larva growing with its 

 house finds a continued supply of nutriment till when full grown it eats its 

 way out of its habitation and emerges into the outer and larger world. The 

 different kind of nuts known as filberts, cob-nuts, &c, are the fruit of 

 varieties of the common hazel, which are profitably cultivated in certain 

 districts, a good yield is held to be synchronous with an abundant wheat 

 harvest, and. if a plantation produces a good crop of nuts every second year 

 it is reckoned to do well. Although we are most familiar with the hazel as 

 a low-branching shrub or bush, putting forth many stems from the root, yet 

 it occasionally, when protected from injury, becomes a small tree. Specimens 

 are known thirty feet high with a trunk a foot in diameter. The young 

 twigs are downy, but the older bark becomes smooth, russet brown, beautifully 

 mottled with lighter spots, hence the simile of hazel eyes. These markings 

 on the bark called henticels correspond to the stomata, found on the epider- 

 mis of leaves and the younger growing portions of plants, their function is 

 to admit air to the underlying tissues. They form starting points for the 

 formation of cork in the bark, and the cell of which they are composed are 

 always loosely arranged so as to leave interstices between. The common 

 hazel has a very wide geographical range, extending over the whole of Europe. 

 In our own country it is found in every county, and reaches an altitude of 

 1900 feet in the highlands. It is the floral badge of the Clan Colquhoun. 

 In the language of flowers it is the emblem of reconciliation, 



A vast assemblage of legends and superstitions cluster around the hazel. 

 Ever since it was employed by the astute oriental shepherd to increase the num- 

 ber of his flocks and herds, it has been popularly assigned as the magic staff of 

 the wizard and soothsayer. The divining rod (see Young Naturalist, vol V., 

 p. 78) was preferably formed of the young twigs of the witch hazel, and its 

 use in these enchantments doubtless originated this common name. In 

 ancient mythology it was sacred to Thor, the god of thunder, and in various 

 countries, certain incantations with hazel wands were believed to avert the 

 evil influences of thunder, as also to ensure for the husbandman a prolific 



