had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-
ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently
applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which
a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected;
for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a
nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep,
the suffering animal is afflicted with 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 ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are
no longer understood, 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

"Religione patrum multos servata per annos."

I am, etc.

LETTER XXIX.

SELBORNE, _Feb._ 7_th_, 1776.

Dear Sir,--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 vapour, 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.

In some of our smaller islands in the West Indies, if I mistake not,
there are no springs or rivers; but the people are supplied with that
necessary element, water, merely by the dripping of some large teak
trees, which, standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads
constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which they dispense their
kindly never-ceasing moisture; and so render those districts habitable by
condensation alone.

Trees in leaf