The Saxons, we are told, kept a formidable fleet of vessels with curved
bottoms and the prow and poop adorned with representations of the head
and tail of some grotesque and fabulous creature. King Alfred had many
vessels that carried sixty oars and were entirely of oak. A vessel
supposed to be of his time has been discovered in the bed of a river in
Kent, and after the lapse of so many centuries it is as sound as ever
and as hard as iron."

"Do oak trees ever have apples on 'em?" asked Clara. "In a story that I
read there was something about 'oak-apples.'"

[Illustration: THE OAK-GALL INSECT (_Cynips_).]

"They are not apples such as we eat, or fruit in any sense," said her
governess. "They are the work of a species of fly called _Cynips_, which
is very apt to attack the oak. 'The female insect is armed with a sharp
weapon called an _ovipositor_, which she plunges into a leaf and makes
a wound. Here she lays her eggs; and when she has done so, she flies
away and we hear no more of her. But the wound she has made disturbs the
circulation of the sap. It flows round and round the eggs as though it
had met with some foreign body it would fain remove. Very soon the eggs
are in the midst of a ball-like and fleshy chamber--the most suitable
provision for them, and one which the parent-insect had provided by
means of puncturing the leaf. As the eggs are hatched the grubs will
find themselves safely housed and in the midst of an abundance
of food.'"

[Illustration: OAK-APPLES.]

"Well," exclaimed Malcolm, in great disgust, "_apple_ is a queer name