THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 177 
cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the 
limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually 
liable, 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 cere- 
monies necessary for such a consecration are no longer under- 
stood, 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 bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, 
urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 
“guarded through many years by the piety of our forefathers.” 
LETTER XXIX. 
SELBORNE, Fed. 7th, 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 vapor, 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. 
