The word _pollard_ is but little used in America; it is derived from the verb to _poll_, or lop, the heads of trees. With us, the custom so much condemned by the author, is unknown; but it is no just sense of the value of wood, no wise spirit of true economy, which causes the difference. On the contrary, if our timber is not mutilated in this way, it is simply owing to a custom still more culpable and wasteful—wherever a branch is needed, a whole tree will be felled. Often has the writer seen a fine chestnut hewn down by some careless lad, merely for the nuts of one season’s growth; frequently have we found oaks, or maples of good size, cut at the root in the same way, for the sake of the wild grapes which hung entwined among their higher branches; and on one occasion, we have seen a noble pine, a hundred and fifty feet in height, the growth perchance of several centuries, felled only to reach a hive of bees, which had taken refuge in a hollow branch. NOTE LL. ICE FLOATING, page 271. Absurd as the notion is, that the ice in our lakes and rivers sinks in spring, yet there are not wanting people who firmly believe it. Not long since, the writer chanced to meet in print a traveler’s story, evidently credited by the individual who asserted it, that the ice in Lake Champlain invariably disappeared in this way, _sinking to the bottom of the lake every spring_. Whether to rise again the following winter, the reader was not informed. In fact, it would be quite as rational to expect the snow which lies so long on our frozen rivers and lakes most winters, to sink bodily into the ice, as to maintain that the ice sinks in the water. There is a coating of ice, however, which is found not unfrequently beneath the water, and that in running streams. But this is _ground ice_, as it is called, and has been formed where it is found, adhering to the soil which forms the bed of the river, and has never sunk from the surface. On the contrary, once loosened from its hold, it not only rises itself, but brings with it pebbles, gravel, &c. The formation of this ground ice has attracted the attention of distinguished scientific men. The slower motion of water at the bottom than on the surface of a stream, connected with the fact that crystals of ice form naturally and very readily on pointed and rough bodies, such as the stones or vegetable substances at the bottom of streams, have been supposed to be the causes of this ground ice. INDEX. Agarics, the pale gray species of, 86 — the verdigris, ibid. — not easily investigated, 87 — the odorous agaric, 91 — the scented, ibid. — the “stainer,” ibid. — the surrectus springing from another species, 256. Agriculture, practice of, at a village in Gloucestershire, 22 — bad custom of the farmers there, 40. Aërial hummings, 250. Amusements, heretofore holiday ones, in decline, 246. Animals, increase of, 101