Journal of Proceedings. iii
The following note was read by the writer, who illustrated it by
references to a sectional drawing of the piece of timber referred to :—
A Bird's-nest in the interior or an Elm-tree.
By W. H. Edinger.
Among those having opportunities of examining timber when cut, the
uncertainty of Elm-trees—as to whether the wood will prove good or bad-
is proverbial. Such a natural substance as bark in the heart of a log is
not so much a matter for surprise as the presence of iron in the form of
nails, chain, &c, stones and other objects which are generally not
regarded so much as curiosities owing to their position, but as things to
be avoided where the teeth of the saws are likely to come. A cannon-ball
has been extracted from a tree, much to the amazement of some people
who, like the king with the dumpling, strove to understand how it got
inside; but the most remarkable object thus ingrafted the writer has yet
seen was recently met with under the following circumstances. An Elm
felled at Bottisham, near Cambridge, was being converted into plank, and
when the sawing was completed and the log was what is technically
termed "broken down" (that is, the sides of the resulting plank exposed
to view), a hole was seen, passing through several of the heart planks at
a point about sixteen feet from the butt of the tree. This hole measured
some eight inches in length vertically, six in width, and about five in
depth, and on examination was found to contain a mass of vegetable
matter, the decomposed material of a bird's-nest, containing three eggs,
which as far as could be made out were originally white, with small dark-
coloured markings, and were not unlike Wrens' eggs. When found they
were mere shells crumbling at the slightest touch. The drawing
exhibited shows the position of the hole, the tree, at this point, being
some six and a half feet in girth. The age of the Elm calculated from the
annular layers of wood growth would be about sixty years, and the com-
munication with the hole must have been closed for at least twenty-five
years.
The explanation of this strange occurrence would seem to be as
follows :—A bough of the tree having been sawn or blown off, the wet
entered the fractured part, and so gradually caused decay until a cavity
was formed sufficiently large for a small bird to build in it. The nest
having been constructed and the eggs laid, we may imagine the parent
birds to have been shot, and the eggs deserted. By the gradual growth
of the tree, the cavity became hidden and immersed in the wood, and the
nest and eggs were preserved in a fashion until the saw revealed the
secret.*
A paper by Mr. Searles V. Wood, F.G.S., "On the Sand-pit at High
Ongar, Essex," was then read by the Secretary. In communicating the
memoir, Mr. Wood wrote :—
" I have ventured to forward for your Club a short paper on a point of
local Geology at High Ongar, not very far from Epping, which I think
may be of some interest to residents in that neighbourhood. It is also
one, the facts attending which, the Club might be able to clear up, by
ascertaining the precise elevation of the pit, and whether the sand in it
* Facts similar to that described above by Mr. Edinger have been frequently recorded
in the pages of Natural History and Botanical journals. Two recently published (in
' Journal of Forestry ', vi. (1883), p. 791, and ' Field,' for August 18th, 1883) seem to be
almost identical in details with the above, if indeed they do not refer to the same
occurrence.—Ed.