4 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
But now the grey moss marred his rine ; 
> His bared boughs were beaten with storms, 
His top was bald and wasted with worms, 
His honour decay’d, his branches sere . — Shepherds Calendar. 
This indeed is a melancholy sight, like the Stag’s Horn Oak 
by the roadside between Farnham and Woolmer, in the ancient 
boundary of Alice Holt Forest; yet this has a young ti'ee grow- 
ing- by its side, perhaps one of his own children, which grace- 
fully conceals much of his gaunt nakedness. In the same 
forest are many old staggy trees, their contorted horn-like 
branches sticking out in a most picturesque manner from the 
top and sides of a still leafy head. In these the white owls may 
still be seen peering out of dark cavernous hollows as they did 
in Gilbert White’s day; and during the summer of 1861 we 
with pleasure watched their motions, which so minutely agreed 
with those described by the father of observing naturalists, 
that we cannot forbear quoting his remarks thereon in his 
“ Natural History of Selborne,” a not very distant parish from 
the Holt, and to which he indeed often refers. 
As I have paid particular attention to the manner of life of these birds 
(the White Owl), during their season of breeding, which lasts the summer 
through, the following remarks may not be unacceptable. About an hour 
before sunset (for then the mice begin to run), they sally forth in cpiest of 
prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small enclosures for them, 
which seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we can stand on 
an eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often 
drop down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch 
for an hour together, and have found that they return to their nest, the one 
or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; reflecting at the same time 
on the adroitness that every animal is possessed of as far as regards the well- 
being of itself and offspring. 
Notwithstanding the good done by these birds in keeping 
under mice, all our eloquence could scarcely preserve them from 
the onslaught of the keeper ; they were, however, protected 
during our pleasant sojourn at the Holt, but we much fear only, 
after all, to gratify the taste for stuffed birds, a love which is 
equally fatal to the feathered race (and especially the finest ex- 
amples thereof), as the hate of the keeper. 
But we are digressing sadly, and must return to Quercufi 
Robur pedunmlata, and complete our observations thereon with 
the statement that most, if not all, the nobler examples of 
oaks in England belong to this form. Selby directs attention 
to the “ Flitton Oak, in Devonshire, of the Sessiliflora variety, 
supposed to be one thousand years old, and which is thirty- 
three feet in circumference at one foot from the ground.” How- 
ever, nearly every historical oak is of the pedunculate variety. 
In the Holt forest are still left some huge examples ; the same 
