stance we have upon record in relation to the notice of trees, is the circumstance of Noah having planted a vineyard. Abraham, again, we find "was buried in the field of Ephron, among the trees, which were distributed throughout the above field." There is no end to numerous allusions which are made to trees throughout the sacred Scriptures, directly and indirectly; whilst, allegorically speaking, the same have been handled to a very great extent. Perhaps it was from the fact that this predilection for vegetation was encouraged in early ages, that the same partial feeling has been observed to have attended it in after-generations, for in all eastern countries where the rite of sepulture is strictly observed, it for the most part occurs that the surviving relatives of the departed select a spot for the interment of the remains of the deceased under some particular tree, or beneath a grove of overshadowing timber. The mango or tamarind feature of vegetation is generally coveted for this sacred purpose, and in the silent hours of night, where the above Mahomedan custom prevails, it is by no means an uncommon occurrence for a person to witness from two to three hundred fulsome luminaries, shedding each, its feeble ray, from the sepulchral tombs of the Mussulman cemeteries which are distributed throughout the Asiatic continent. There are officers appointed by families, whose duty it is to cause a cheraugh (an earthen vessel), containing cocoa-nut oil, to be deposited in a niche, let into the sepulchres of the deceased, and to be ignited each returning evening, so soon as the sun's lower limb dips the western horizon. This rite is punctually observed, under a very severe penalty to the parties omitting to undertake so imperative a duty. The object for burning the cheraughs is, with a view to deter jackals, wild dogs, and other cadaverous beasts from ransacking the repositories of the dead during the dark hours of night, although the above precaution has little or no effect upon those foul and fetid scavengers, which may be witnessed stretched at full length upon the graves of the corpses interred, lazily engaged in mumbling the osseous relics of the dead; whilst vultures adjutants and other winged volucrine scavengers (comessmates in carrion) are seen flocking together, intent to revel in the polluted banquet of human flesh, upon the sorry arena of unhallowed impurity. But setting aside the religious observances incident to the character of certain oriental customs, we may infer that a due regard for particular trees had been strictly enjoined from time to time, by the inhabitants of our own island, and this circumstance, there can be little or no doubt, had arisen from the monastic teaching of our primitive ancestors, who being duly impressed with the superstitious notions of the age in which they lived, strove by all means in their power to establish and perpetuate the rites and customs which had preceded them, and which still continued to occupy their best undivided attention. And the latter remark brings to my mind the fact of the prevalence of the yew-tree being so generally observable in the church-yards of this country. Some of this sombre class of timber bespeaks great longevity. In the cemetery of Totteridge parish, in Hertfordshire, is to be seen a yewtree, which from traditional records must have occupied its present position for a period of some centuries. It is quite hollow, and will admit of a party of eight persons to occupy the interior, without the same experiencing the slightest inconvenience. This tree is a female, and at the fall of the year produces an abundance of scarlet berries, which when distributed throughout the foliage, imparts to it a very lively and animating appearance. At the eastern end of the same church-yard is a male yew-tree, which at the same season of the year sheds vast quantities of a poisonous farina on the soil surrounding its immediate presence. That yew-trees owed their primitive existence in church-yards to meet the exigencies of the congregations attendant on Divine Service, is extremely probable. The same were capable of affording both shelter and shade in sun and rain to the parishioners before the church doors, were opened, to admit them into the interior of the building; or it might be that, from the great extent of longevity at which the above trees were known to arrive, that the same were encouraged in these sacred precincts, as emblems of immortality, thus far resembling the souls of the departed; be this as it may, we find an Act of Parliament passed so early as the reign of King Edward III., to the following effect:"Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat;" enjoining "that no rector should be suffered to cut down any trees growing in a churchyard." Now, as the yew was, generally speaking, the only tree which was encouraged in such sacred plots, it would seem to imply that the Act of Parliament under consideration applied to that tree in particular, and this latter fact may go some way to establish the cause why certain yew-trees have attained to so great an age in church-yards, generally, throughout the kingdom. In the year 1810, the late Mr. Peter More, then Member of Parlia ment for Coventry, was provisional Lord of the Manor of Monkton Hadley, in Middlesex, and having an arboricidal mania upon him, laid siege to every stick of timber that fell within his manorial rango. He even went so far as to cause some stately, robust elm-trees, standing in the church-yard, to be marked, to undergo the axe-craft of the woodman ; but the rector for the time being, stayed the blow, and up to the present hour (1st Nov. 1866). "Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."-GRAY'S ELEGY. In the New Forest, near a spot known as Lady's Cross, has, for many years past, been recognized a venerable oak tree, which annually buds on Christmas day, but the germs wither within a week without foliating. There is at Pasford Rings, near Lymington, in Hampshire, an old ashtree, which has been long reputed for the same, emitting most lugubrious intonations, in "dead o' nights." Some hundreds of country people have proved silent auditors of these mysterious and unexplained bemoanings; the ominous feature goes under the apposite appellation of the groaning-tree; this circumstance may be attributed to one of the limbs lying across another, operated upon by the breeze blowing from the sea. At Turmpington, near Cambridge, upon the estate of T. Pemberton, Esq., stood an aged elm-tree, which had survived some generations. From traditional testimony it was ascertained that when Milton, the author of "Paradise Lost," was a student at Christ's College, he took notice of a pair of ravens, which had built their nest and had hatched their broods in the above tree, and a pair of these birds still continue to carry on their duties of incubation on the self-same tree. Hierocles the Wit names the circumstance of a person, upon being informed that a raven would live for a hundred years, having gone out and purchased a bird of the kind, by way of testing the experiment. Upon the leads of Romsey Abbey, in Hampshire, was to be seen an apple-tree, which bore three distinct kinds of fruit. A dish of the same was served up at a dessert upon the the occasion of a dinner party being given by the late Lord Viscount Palmerston, at Broadlands, in 1819. The Mulberry-tree, which was planted by the poet Milton, in the garden of Christ's College, Cambridge, is still standing, as a memento of the hand that produced "Comus." The cedar of Lebanon, which was inserted in the earth a very sapling by the late Earl Spencer, premier of England, in the year when that distinguished nobleman was mayor for the borough of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, 1808, at this time casts a holy shade around the Abbey walls of the site on which was decollated Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain. On the left-hand side of the high road leading out of London to the town of Barnet, as the traveller proceeds towards Finchley, will be observed standing within a short remove from the bank, a venerable oaktree, which is in the last sad stages of decay. This vestige of past times is Turpin's-oak, the only timber feature now standing on the site of what was once Finchley Common. It was behind this umbrage that the above notorious highwayman, and others of his clan, were in the practice of concealing themselves by night, and issuing out with fire-arms in their hands, intent upon robbing the unguarded and unsuspecting traveller. In these days Dick Turpin and others were a complete terror to travellers who were tempted to proceed on a journey to the North of England without an armed escort. The mail coaches were not free from the incursions of these desperadoes, and several of the leading characters belonging to the above nefarious gang were tried at the Old Bailey, for highway robbery, and, being found guilty, were fully convicted, and hung in chains. It was by no means an uncommon spectacle for a person passing on the road from Barnet to London, to gibbets erected within a short distance from the roadside, containing the persons of those executed male witness two or more factors. Whilst ploughing a spot of land on the common, for the reception of an cat crop, some few years since, a labourer alighted upon a congeries of human bones, accompanied by a skull, which, there can be no doubt, were the osseous remains of some unfortunate criminal, who had undergone the final sentence of the law, and whose body had been consigned to a gibbet which had been erected above the spot where they were in after years so fortuitously discovered. The writer some time since, with the aid of a knife, succeeded in abstracting two small bullets from the bark of Turpin's oak, which there can be little doubt had been dismissed from a pistol or some other projectile in self-defence against highwaymen, at some remote period. This tree, in 1809, was struck by the electric fluid during a violent thunder storm, and sustained a severe shock, which has tended to hasten its decay. The withered oak its crest uprears, Nor heeds the freshening shower.-D. G. There are certain trees to which animals and birds more particularly resort, for the purpose of food and shelter. It is a singular fact that the green pigeon is never seen to settle upon the ground, but invariably has recourse to the peepul, or Indian-fig tree. It feeds almost wholly and solely upon the berries and buds which this course of vegetation produces, and so closely does its plumage approach the colour of the foliage of the above tree, that, unless the bird moves, the same is not discernible, although a person is close to it. I have been so deceived by the likeness of these birds to the leaves of the peepul, that, whilst I have been standing under a tree unconscious of a single pigeon being seated among the branches, to my utter astonishment, upon a sudden, a flock of from fifty to one hundred of them have taken wing simultaneously just over my head, and shot through the air before I was aware of their presence. The above birds affect no other tree but the peepul. The bannian tree is common to the monkey and squirrel families; here they take up their sleeping quarters, although they have to encounter the annoyance of serpents, which do much mischief among these gambolling tribes. The bubbool-tree is the Indian nursery for the honey-bee. These insects construct their combs on the branches of the bubbool, and immense draughts of honey are collected from the cells of these treasuries. This tree bears a profusion of golden aromatic blossoms, highly attractive to bees; and the bark of this timber is used generally throughout the country for tanning hides, for which purpose it is regarded in a very valuable light. The 2,000 gs. Stakes (Run April 23rd) 4 to 1 each against Plaudit and The Hermit, and 15 to 1 against Grand Cross. The Room was closed on Monday, December 24th and Thursday the 27th. Printed by Rogerson and Tuxford, 246, Strand, London. EMBELLISHMENTS. GONE то GROUND. 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