storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation.

In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called The Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was

names of Hogmer and Cranmer, and the large and almost united ponds at Oak hanger.

To the cultivator this division of the parish is at present almost useless. It is probable that scarcely any of it has been brought into occupation for many ages; and it will be long before much of it can be so far reclaimed as to be at all available for farming purposes.

In the dreariness of the Forest there is a variation from the character of the scenery of the adjacent strata that may interest for a while. There is also a boldness, occasionally, in the form of the ridges, and an abruptness in their terminations, that imparts somewhat of a mountain air to the view. But it is chiefly as an adjunct to the other features of the Selborne prospects that it avails; and in its masses, and its heights, and its waters, it forms a fine termination to most of the more extensive of them.

A general idea of the surface of the country may be formed from thus passing in review the several portions of which it consists, and which succeed each other with perfect regularity. Some idea will also be obtained of the delightful scenery of the neighbourhood in which the author dwelt throughout his life; a scenery infinitely varied according to the extent of the country included in each view, the number of the strata embraced by it, and the relative proportion of each. The combination, in the more extensive of them, of the broad arable flat of the upper lands and their angularly edged terraces and hangers, with the rich meadows and oak woods of the bottom, and the wide and bold wastes and shining waters of the Forest, is above all delightful.

Some such views Mr. Harvey has represented in an account of Selborne and its Vicinity which is now in preparation for the press, and which will be principally devoted to the description and delineation of the more interesting scenes and objects of the district; and to the imparting of other local information relating to the neighbourhood in which Gilbert White lived and died.-E. T. B.

the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted this tree must certainly have been, as will appear from what will be said further concerning this area when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne 2.

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value; they were tall and taper like firs, but, standing near together, had very small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs3. About twenty years ago

2 The reference in the text to another portion of the volume for other particulars respecting this oak would almost render any explanation in this place unnecessary. It may, however, be shortly stated that The Plestor measures about forty-four yards by thirty-six, and that the oak, whose branches nearly overshadowed this large space, is conjectured by Gilbert White to have been, at the time when it was blown down, four hundred and thirty-two years old.-E. T. B.

* Mr. White only hints in this place at the interesting effects of shelter and exposure on the growth of trees. In the interior of forests and crowded plantations, the wind can exert a far less mechanical effect on individual trees than in exposed situations; and, therefore, while they are positively determined to push upwards to the light, they are negatively permitted to do so by the removal of any necessity to thicken their trunks for the sake of greater strength, and to contract the height of them in order to afford the blast a shorter lever against the roots. On the other hand, trees in an open situation are freely exposed to the wind, and the large expansion of their branches gives every advantage to the violence of the storm. Nature accordingly bestows greater proportional elevation [thickness of trunk] on trees which are insulated, or nearly so; while their system of root, which, by necessity, is correlatively proportional to their system of top, affords likewise heavier ballast and a stronger anchorage, in order to counteract the greater spread of sail displayed in the wider expansion of their branches. Trees in the interior of woods, accordingly, are in general found to have their stems upright

the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for twenty pounds a piece.

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of The Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

and stately; their bark glossy and beautiful; their tops small and thinly provided with branches; and their roots, in the same way, spare and scanty, but in due proportion to the tops. Trees, on the other hand, in open exposures, have their stems stout and short; their bark thick and coarse; their tops extensive and spreading; their branches often reaching to the ground; and their roots extensive like their tops, and throwing themselves out on every side. - RENNIE.

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

THE fossil shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnæan genus of Mytilus and the species of Crista Galli; called by Lister, Rastellum; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum minus; by D'Argenville, Auris Porci, s. Crista Galli; and by those who make collections, cock's comb. Though I applied to several such in London, I never could meet with an entire specimen; nor could I ever find in books any engraving from a perfect one. In the superb museum at Leicester House1, permission was given me to exa

1 The superb museum at Leicester House, originally the property of Sir Ashton Lever, and long known as the Leverian Museum, is characterized by Pennant as magnificent and instructive, and as "the most astonishing collection of the subjects of natural history ever collected, in so short a space, by any individual. To the disgrace of our kingdom, after the first burst of wonder was over, it became neglected; and when it was offered to the public, by the chance of a guinea lottery, only eight thousand out of thirty-six thousand tickets were sold. Finally, the capricious goddess frowned on the spirited proprietor of such a number of tickets, and transferred the treasure to the possessor of only two, Mr. Parkinson." The successful candidate for fortune's favours proved that they were not ill bestowed upon him, by continually adding, in the most liberal manner, to the collection which had thus come into his possession, and by building, expressly for its reception, near the south end of Blackfriars Bridge, a house (subsequently appropriated to the Surrey Institution) in which the specimens of natural history and of art, of which the museum consisted, were exhibited for many years. They were finally disposed of by auction, in 1806. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the collection at that time by the duration of the sale for sixty-five days, and by the number of the lots, which amounted to 7879.— E. T. B.

mine for this article; and though I was disappointed as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of several of the shells themselves in high preservation. This bivalve is only known to inhabit the Indian ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name Gorgonia. The curious foldings of the suture the one into the other, the alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen being much easier expressed by the pencil than by words, I have caused it to be drawn and engraved 2.

2 Notwithstanding the great care which was evidently bestowed by the author on the identification of his fossil shell, he was by no means so successful in the results of his research as he deserved to be: it is certainly not the analogue of the cock's comb oyster, the Mytilus Crista Galli of Linnæus and Ostrea Crista Galli of Lamarck; but belongs to an altogether different species which has not, so far at least as conchologists yet know, any living analogue. The figures given above, which are copied from those of the original edition, represent a shell of the species to which, on account of the strong ridge or keel along the middle of each of its valves, Lamarck gave the name of Ostrea carinata. It has repeatedly been figured, since the first publication of the Natural History of Selborne, as well in foreign as in English works: and, by a curious coincidence, in the Genera of Recent and Fossil Shells, by Mr. G. B. Sowerby, one plate contains representations both of this fossil (from a gigantic specimen) and of the cock's comb oyster, to which Gilbert White referred it. Though both are plaited oysters, the plaits or folds are disposed in a manner altogether dissimilar in the two shells: in the cock's comb oyster they are in the longitudinal direction of the shell, which, moreover, is rounded in its general outline; in the keeled oyster they pass transversely on each side from a ridge which is continued along the middle of a considerably produced shell.

The statement in the text, that it was obtained in the chalky fields, renders it necessary to caution the reader against regarding it as a chalk