188 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
accident, to which they were continually hable, our provident 
forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once 
medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was 
made thus :* — Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored 
with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in 
alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations 
long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a 
consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an 
end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor, or 
hundred. 
As to that on the Plestor 
" The late vicar stubb'd and burnt it," 
when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the 
by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging 
its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 
" Religione patrum multos servata per annos." 
I am, &c. 
LETTER XXIX. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776. 
In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect 
alembics : and no one that has not attended to such matters can 
imagine how much water one tree will distil in a night^s time, 
by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the twigs and 
boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float. In 
Newton-lane, in October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak 
in leaf dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in puddles and 
the ruts ran with water, though the ground in general was 
dusty. 
In some of our smaller islands in the West-Indies, if I mistake 
not, there are no springs or rivers ; but the people are supplied 
with that necessary element, water, merely by the dripping of 
some large tall trees, which, standing in the bosom of a moun- 
tain, keep their heads constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, 
from which they dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture ; 
and so render those districts habitable by condensation alone. 
Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than 
* For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire. 
