OF SJELBORNE, 
541 
settled again in heaps on tlie shingles ; where preening 
their feather s_, and lifting up their wings to admit the rays, 
of the sun^ they seemed highly to enjoy the warm situation. 
Thus did they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their 
migration, and as it were consulting when and where they 
are to go ! The flight about the church consisted chiefly of 
house martins,, about 400 in number : but there were other 
places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same 
time. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their 
assemblies on trees. Such sights as these fi-ll me with en- 
thusiasm, and make me cry out involuntarily, 
" Amusive birds ! say where your liid retreat, 
When the frost rages, and the tempests beat ! " 
We have very great oaks here on absolute sand. For 
over Wolmer Forest, at Bramshot Place, where I visit, I 
measured last summer three great hollow oaks, which made 
a very grotesque appearance at the entrance of the avenue, 
and found the largest twenty-one feet in girth at five feet 
from the ground. The largest sycamore in my friencFs 
court measures thirteen feet. His edible chestnuts grow 
amazingly, but make (for some have been felled) vile shaky^ 
cup-shaky timber.^ I think the oak on sands is shaky, as 
it is also on our rocks, as I know by sad experience the last 
time I built. The indented oaken leaf which you gathered 
between Rome and N^aples was the quercus cerris of Linngeus."^ 
The yellow oak which you saw in Sussex escaped my notice. 
Richard Muliman Trench Chiswell, Esq., of Portland 
Place, and M.P., tells a friend of mine in town that he has- 
an elm in Essex for which he has been bid £100. It is 
long enough, he says, to make a keel ungrafted for a man- 
of-war of the largest dimensions. As he expressed a desire 
^ These original lines occur in " The ]N'aturalist's Summer Evening 
Walk," which White dedicated to Pennant, see p. 83. — Ed. 
2 See note 3, to the first letter of the present series, p. 530. — Ed. 
This, the Turkish oak, was introduced into this country about a 
century ago, fi:"om the south of Europe, and is now much planted as aa 
ornamental tree. — Ed. 
