REV. M. C. H. BIRD ON ACORNS. 
339 
property. The mass should then be dried and reduced to a 
powder, and kept in a covered jar or keg. When wanted, it 
may be kneaded into dough and formed into thin cakes, 
which may be baked on the hob or in the embers.” The 
author, however, concludes — 41 We do not recommend these 
cakes for habitual eating, but in times of great scarcity they 
might be occasionally partaken of as a substitute for wheaten 
bread.” 
A very good example of natural inarching may be seen in 
the uniting of two boughs of an Oak tree growing on the left- 
hand side of the road immediately after crossing the brook at 
the base of Smallburgh Hill, on the way to Dilham. 
Near Dilham Vicarage there is an Oak which bears small, 
conspicuously marked, black-ringed acorns. It is, I believe, 
the only specimen of such a variety in England. 
The necessity for the common Oak to perfect a great 
number of seeds is obvious when one remembers: firstly, 
that it has a greater number of insect foes to contend against 
than any other tree, and secondly, the number and variety of 
animals that prey upon its fruit — Squirrels. Rats, Mice, Voles, 
Hares and Rabbits, Rooks and Crows, Jays, Nuthatches, 
Pheasants and Ducks, all levying toll upon it. It is not 
therefore to be wondered at that however great the acorn 
harvest may be, it soon disappears, and but very few, com- 
paratively, self-sown Oaks spring up, even where the soil is 
not interfered with by man. When one does come across 
seedling Oaks, it is often in most unexpected places ; on a 
marsh wall for instance, far away from any parent tree, where 
they have been planted by garnering but frightened or 
forgetful Rooks, acting all innocently meanwhile as nature’s 
nurserymen.* 
The greater number of parasites a plant has, in any place, 
the greater number of years that species of plant may be 
* As to domestic Poultry, Turkeys are fond of acorns and do well 
on them. If fed to laying hens, they are said so materially to darken 
the yelk as to make it unattractive in appearance. 
