102 
NATURE NOTES. 
measuring twenty-six feet round its” massive trunk — so at least 
declared our guide, but Gilbert White gives its girth as being 
twenty-three to twenty-five feet ; it would be interesting to know 
if three feet in a century is the usual rate of this tree’s increase 
in size. One cannot but look with deep interest at a tree 
which may have numbered thirteen hundred years of existence. 
and is still, apparently, in vigorous health. In the west wall of 
the church the masons have inserted small pieces of ironstone in 
the plaster between the courses of stone, gndng a curious spotted 
effect to the wall.'" 
[• White thus refers to this in his fifth letter to Pennant : — “From a 
notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons 
chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, 
•and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar, along the joints of their free- 
stone walls. This embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has occasioned 
strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, ‘ whether we fastened our walls together 
with tenpenny nails.’” — E d. W.W.] 
