Notwithstanding the good done by these birds in keeping under mice, all our eloquence could scarcely preserve them from the onslaught of the keeper; they were, however, protected during our pleasant sojourn at the Holt; but we much fear only, after all, to gratify the taste for stuffed birds, a _love_ which is equally fatal to the feathered race (and especially the finest examples thereof) as the _hate_ of the keeper. But we are digressing sadly, and must return to _Quercus Robur pedunculata_, and complete our observations thereon with the statement that most, if not all, the nobler examples of oaks in England belong to this form. Selby directs attention to the “Flitton Oak, in Devonshire, of the _Sessiliflora_ variety, supposed to be one thousand years old, and which is thirty-three feet in circumference at one foot from the ground.” However, nearly every historical oak is of the pedunculate variety. In the Holt forest are still left some huge examples; the same in the Dean forest; and Braydon, near Swindon, Wilts, though disafforested, can yet show noble trees of this form. Indeed, throughout England it is difficult to meet with many examples of any other form, except in Wyre forest, Worcestershire, where the tree next to be described is perhaps the more general, and it would also appear that in the New Forest the _Q. sessiliflora_ is also frequently met with. _Quercus Robur sessiliflora_ may be generally described as of a more upright and formal habit. Limbs straighter and less gnarled. Bark usually smoother than the former. The leaf has many sinuosities, and is set on a comparatively long leaf-stalk (petiole) (Plate II. fig. _a_). The fruit, on the contrary, is so nearly sessile that it may be said to have little more than the indication of a peduncle (fig. _b_).