to 300 years longer without becoming completely decayed. This would bring the age of an oak to 1000 years.

This fact of the mark I have referred to being found in the centre of the Sherwood Forest oaks is not a little remarkable, and in some degree identifies the age of the tree. That substances placed either in a hole or the fork of a tree, will, in process of time find their way into the centre of it, cannot be doubted. An instance of this was communicated to me by the head carpenter of Hampton Court Gardens, a person on whose accuracy and veracity I can place every reliance, and I give the account in nearly his own words. He informed me that hearing from some of his brother workmen that in sawing up the butt of a large ash tree, they had found a bird's nest in the centre of it, he immediately went to the spot, and found the ash cut in two longitudinally on the saw-pit, and the bird's nest nearly in the centre of the diameter. The nest was about two thirds of a hollow globe, and composed of moss, hair, and feathers, all seemingly in a fresh state. There were three eggs in it, nearly white and somewhat speckled. On examining the tree most minutely, with several other workmen, no mark or protuberance were found to indicate the least injury. The bark was perfectly smooth, and the tree quite sound. In endeavouring to account for this

curious fact, we can only suppose that some accidental hole was made in the tree before it arrived at any great size, in which a bird had built its nest and forsaken it, after she had laid three eggs. As the tree grew larger, the bark would grow over the hole, and in process of time the nest would become embedded in the tree.

I have already referred to a few of the fine old trees in Windsor Great Park, but I must not omit to mention the large vine in the gardens attached to Cumberland Lodge in that park. This vine is but little known, but it is considerably larger than the one at Hampton Court, filling a house 120 feet long, and producing last autumn a prodigious crop of grapes.

The large thorn in Dalham Park, Suffolk, (of which a sketch is here given), is also well worthy

of notice, both from its great size, its antiquity, and the curious manner in which it grows. -It also affords another proof of the accuracy of the remark I made elsewhere, that when the thorn arrives at a certain age, it separates into distinct stems.

It is perhaps not generally known that one of the elm trees standing near the entrance of the passage leading into Spring Gardens, was planted by the Duke of Gloucester, brother to Charles the First. As that unfortunate monarch was walking with his guards from St. James's to Whitehall, on the morning of his execution, he turned to one of his attendants and mentioned the circumstance, at the same time pointing out the tree.

Few trees were more interesting than the Golynos Oak; this wonderful tree grew on the estate from which it takes its name, about four miles from the sea-port town of Newport, in the county of Monmouth. It was purchased by the late Thomas Harrison, Esq. (many years His Majesty's Purveyor of Plymouth Dockyard and Dean Forest), in the year 1810, for one hundred guineas, and was felled and converted by him the same year. Five men were each twenty days stripping and cutting it down; and a pair of sawyers were constantly employed one hundred and thirty-eight days in its conversion. The

expense of stripping, felling, and sawing, (exclusive of superintending the conversion or hallage of any part of it), was eighty-two pounds. It was felled in separate parts, and stages were erected for the workmen to stand on to cut down the valuable limbs. Previous to being felled it was divested of its brushwood, which was placed as a bed, to prevent the timber from bursting in falling. The main trunk of the tree was nine feet and a half in diameter, and consequently no saw could be found long enough to cut it down; two saws were therefore brazed together. In cutting the

three feet in a diametrical direction from the rind, round which the timber was perfectly sound. The rings in its butt being reckoned, it was discovered that this tree had been improving upwards of four hundred years! and, as many of its lateral branches were dead, and some broken off, it is presumed it must have stood little short of a century after it had attained maturity. When standing, it overspread four hundred and fifty-two square yards of ground. Its produce was as follows:

Main trunk, at ten feet long

Feet. 450

126

Total quantity of timber

Its conversion was-the main trunk cut into quarter boards and coopers' stuff; the limbs, one upper piece stem for a one hundred gun ship, one ditto fifty guns, one other piece seventy-four guns, three lower futtocks each one hundred guns, one fourth futtock one hundred guns, one ditto seventy-four guns, one ditto forty-four guns, one