T. Scùtulum, as Mr. Blair remarks above, is of a dirty yellow hue, and T. Maugèi differs from it in having its back of a dark brown colour, and in the more cylindrical form of its shell. The French naturalists, Mr. Sowerby remarked, suppose the English T. Scùtulum, with which they possess almost no practical acquaintance, to be identical with the T. haliotídeus of Faune Biguet, and described in Férussac's Histoire, and to which, indeed, it is most closely allied, but differs in the form of its shell. T. Scùtulum is figured in Sowerby's Genera of Shells, T. Maugèi in Sowerby's Genera of Shells, and in Férussac's Histoire, pl. 8. fig. 10. 12.; and T. haliotídeus is figured in Férussac's Histoire, pl. 8. fig. 5-9., and two views of its shell are given in Sowerby's Genera of Shells. — J. D. Limax Sowerbyi of Férussac. — In Vol. V. p. 694. it is conjectured that Férussac's "plate viii. D.," which he cites for a figure of this species, had not been published up to the date of offering the conjecture. The fact is otherwise: Mr. J. D. C. Sowerby has since informed me that Férussac's "plate viii. D." is published. Food. Limax Sowérbyi feeds on cabbage leaves when no other food is obtainable. On Nov. 20th I shut up twenty or more living specimens, and with them portions of cabbage leaves plucked fresh off the plants, in a box, where they remained confined until Nov. 26. On opening the box then, the cabbage leaves had been much eaten, and although the remains of them were then yellow, putrescent, and fetid, some of the slugs were feeding upon them. I have subsequently learned from Mr. Blair, in a note dated Dec. 2. 1832, that "at this season L. Sowérbyi is very destructive to the celery under ground; and," Mr. Blair adds, "in taking up, lately, my bulbs of Tigridia Pavònia, I found many of them destroyed by it." Eggs.-On August 31. 1832, I found an egg or two of this species, as I then fully believed; but, fearing the possibility of error, I did not mention the fact in the notice, Vol. V. p. 693— 697. On Nov. 29. I found a cluster of about a dozen of precisely similar eggs attached to the head of a living L. Sowerbyi which had buried its head in the soil, in its act of depositing its eggs beneath the surface. I may here remark that other individuals, on the same plot of ground, seemed to have crept into the hollows and crannies of the soil, as if in shelter from the approaching cold weather. I brought away some of the eggs, and shall here attempt to describe one, as a sample of the rest. The egg, in figure, inclines to oval, is soft, elastic, nearly two tenths of an inch long, more than half its length in breadth, as transparent as ground glass, but of a yellowish hue; the coats of the egg, which appear two at fewest, by close inspection are found to be clouded with numerous and very minute white freckles, and these produce the resemblance to ground glass, already mentioned; the jelly within the egg is viscous.-J. D. ART. IX. Some Account of an aged Yew Tree in Buckland Churchyard, near Dover. By the Rev. W. T. BREE, M.A. Sir, "A noble wreck, in ruinous perfection." IN Buckland churchyard, about a mile from Dover, there stands a yew tree (fig. 9.), of such high antiquity and sin gular conformation, that a few remarks on it may not, perhaps, be without interest, or be deemed altogether foreign to the general object of this Magazine. When we consider the very slow growth of the yew, and its equally tardy progress towards decay, we may safely rank the present specimen among very oldest vegetable remains to be found in the kingdom, not the excepting even the celebrated Tortworth chestnut, or the most time-worn relics of the "monarch of the forest," the oak itself. It would be in vain to enquire of the inhabitants about the age of the tree; and were I express my own sentiments on the subject, I should, perhaps, appear to some as a visionary enthusiast. At all events, to this yew may with propriety be applied the following beautiful lines which Cowper has addressed to the Yardley Oak: "Oh! couldst thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth The mere antiquity, however, of the tree is not so much the object of my calling attention to it, as some other circum See a figure and account of the tree in Strutt's Sylva Britannica. It may, perhaps, be objected, that I am here inferring the tree to be of greater antiquity than it really is, and assigning to it a date anterior to the building of the church; whereas (it will be urged) the yew must, in all probability, have been planted in the churchyard after the erection of the edifice, as the usual appropriate emblem of funereal rites, &c. But may it not admit of a question, whether, in some particular cases at least (I am far from saying in all), the church may not have been brought to the yew tree, rather than the yew tree to the church? In ancient times, probably, the yew occurred in greater abundance, as a spontaneous native plant, than it does at present; and, without doubt, its propagation and growth were then far more generally and sedulously encouraged. The wood is now no longer needed, as formerly, for the supply of implements for war or for the chase; and the well-known injurious effects of the foliage on cattle, at least when eaten in a withered state, have doubtless tended to the extirpation of the tree in pastures, &c., to which our domestic animals have access. I should not, therefore, be surprised to learn, that, in the “olden time,” the species was copiously scattered about in most parts of the country; or that, in some instances, a particular spot might have been selected rather than another, for the erection of a church, among other reasons, mainly on account of some yew tree that grew upon it. I am the more inclined to this opinion by observing the very high antiquity of some of our churchyard yews, which have the appearance of being more than coeval with the churches near which they are found: in saying this, I am, of course, not alluding to churches of modern erection. It has been suggested to me, by an able and valued antiquarian friend, that, though he sees no objection to the above hypothesis, still a more simple argument may be formed on the great probability of the church having undergone an ancient re-edification or alteration; and that, perhaps, an inspection of the very church in question may show certain portions, pillars, e. g. windows, or doorways, supporting this conjecture. I regret that I did not happen to examine Buckland church with sufficient accuracy to enable me to state how far my friend's observations may be applicable to the present case. stances connected with its present state and appearance, Upwards of sixty years ago (as I am informed by an old inhabitant of the place), the tree was shattered by lightning, which at the same time demolished also the steeple of the church close to which it stands. To this catastrophe, no doubt, is to be attributed, in great measure, much of the rude and grotesque appearance which it now presents. At a yard from the ground, the but, which is hollow, and on one side extremely tortuous and irregular, protruding its "knotted fangs," like knees, at the height of some feet from the surface, measures 24 ft. in circumference. It is split from the bottom into two portions; one of which, at the height of about 6 ft., again divides naturally into two parts; so that the tree consists of a short squat but, branching out into three main arms, the whole not exceeding in height, to the extreme top of the branches, more than about 25 ft. or 30 ft. Of what may be regarded as the original trunk and arms, but little, I conceive, now remains alive: two considerable portions, however, are still conspicuous in the state of dead wood; viz., one on the inner part of the northern limb, hollow, and forming a sort of tunnel or chimney; the other on the western limb, more solid, and exhibiting the grain of the wood singularly gnarled and contorted. These, which I have ventured to call portions of the original trunk and arms, are partly encased, as it were, on the outside by living wood of more recent growth (as is frequently seen to be the case in other old and decayed trees); the dead portions seeming to evince a disposition to slough out (if I may use such an expression), like fragments of carious bone separating from the flesh, but kept fixed in their position by the living wood, lapping over, as it does, and clasping them firmly. If this view of the subject be correct, it would seem almost impossible to set limits to the duration of the yew*, as it appears that fresh wood continues to form externally long after the more central parts have completely decayed. Nor is this circumstance, I am aware, peculiar to the * In proof of the toughness and durability of the yew, I may here mention a circumstance relating to a tree of this species in Coleshill churchyard, Warwickshire. The tree consists of a mere thin hollow shell, not more than half of the whole circumference, and carries, perhaps, its due proportion of top and branches. More than forty years ago, a near relative of mine, as I have often heard him state, once stood for half an hour watching this tree during a tempestuous gale of wind, in order to witness its fall, expecting every moment that it must inevitably be blown down, it bent, and wreathed, and twisted so, under the influence of the boisterous elements. My friend has been dead some years; the yew remains to this day precisely in the same condition in which it existed when I first knew it in my childhood. yew: it is common, also, to the oak, and to many, perhaps most, other trees. And hence, in calculating the girth which a tree would have had in its sound and vigorous state *, merely from the data afforded by a remaining portion of its shell, the measure is apt to be somewhat overrated. If, for 10 example, the segment a b c (fig.10.) be supposed to represent a fragment of a hollow shell, and to measure from a by b to c just 12 ft., it is sometimes too hastily assumed that e the circumference of the whole tree, when perfect, must have been double that dimension, or 24 ft.; allowance not being made for the exterior increase of the shell (a b c) subsequently to the loss of the absent portion: whereas the utmost circumference of the entire trunk might not probably have exceeded the dimension represented by the inner dotted circle (d). But to return to the Buckland yew: the encasing of the old dead wood by that of more modern formation + is well displayed also in one part of the southern limb of the tree, where an aperture occurs, which exposes to view the dead wood completely enveloped and embedded within the living. The trunk, I have said, is decayed, and hollow at the bottom; but from within the shell there arise two or more vigorous detached portions, of small diameter, which soon unite with the main wood, and run up to a considerable height, lapping into one another, twisting and interlacing in a very striking manner, so as to suggest the idea that the trunk has been ripped open, and is now exposing to view its very entrails. Imagination, indeed, might readily trace a fanciful resemblance between this vegetable ruin, as viewed in a particular position, and some anatomical preparation of an animal trunk, of which the viscera are displayed, and preserved entire. On the whole, I cannot but consider this yew as a most curious and *See some observations of Mr. South, in his letters on the growth of oaks, addressed to the Bath Society, quoted in Strutt's Sylva Britannica, 8vo edit., p. 20. This may be seen well exemplified in an old yew tree close to the parsonage (?) house at Barfreston, and in another in the churchyard at Waldershare. Many fine old specimens of yew trees occur in the neighbourhood of Dover; one in a churchyard by the side of the road to Deal, near Walmer, of which I had only a passing glimpse, I regret that I had not an opportunity of visiting and examining them at leisure. |