It must be also considered, that the _Oleaster_, or wild Olive, by cutting, transplanting and the best managery of Art, can be made but to produce such Olives as (_Theophrastus_ saith) were particularly named _Phaulia_, that is, but _bad Olives_; and that it was reckon'd among Prodigies, for the _Oleaster_ to become an Olive Tree.
And when insition and grafting, in the Text, is applied unto the Olive Tree, it hath an Emphatical sense, very agreeable unto that Tree which is best propagated this way; not at all by surculation, as _Theophrastus_ observeth, nor well by Seed, as hath been observed. _Omne semen simile genus perficit, præter oleam, Oleastrum enim generat, hoc est sylvestrem oleam, et non oleam veram._
"If, therefore, thou Roman and Gentile Branch, which wert cut from the wild Olive, art now, by the signal mercy of God, beyond the ordinary and commonly expected way, grafted into the true Olive, the Church of God; if thou, which neither naturally nor by humane art canst be made to produce any good Fruit, and, next to a Miracle, to be made a true Olive, art now by the benignity of God grafted into the proper Olive; how much more shall the Jew, and natural Branch, be grafted into its genuine and mother Tree, wherein propinquity of nature is like, so readily and prosperously, to effect a coalition? And this more especially by the expressed way of insition or implantation, the Olive being not successfully propagable by Seed, nor at all by surculation."
[Sidenote: _Stork nesting on Firre Trees in_ Psal. 104. 17.]
33. _As for the Stork, the Firre Trees are her House._ This expression, in our Translation, which keeps close to the Original _Chasidah_, is somewhat different from the Greek and Latin Translation; nor agreeable unto common observation, whereby they are known commonly to build upon Chimneys, or the tops of Houses, and high Buildings, which notwithstanding, the common Translation may clearly consist with observation, if we consider that this is commonly affirmed of the black Stork, and take notice of the description of _Ornithologus_ in _Aldrovandus_, that such Storks are often found in divers parts, and that they do _in Arboribus nidulari, præsertim in abietibus_; Make their Nests on Trees, especially upon Firre Trees. Nor wholly disagreeing unto the practice of the common white Stork, according unto _Varro_, _nidulantur in agris_: and the concession of _Aldrovandus_ that sometimes they build on Trees: and the assertion of _Bellonius_,[220] that men dress them Nests, and place Cradles upon high Trees, in Marish regions, that Storks may breed upon them: which course some observe for Herns and Cormorants with us. And this building of Storks upon Trees, may be also answerable unto the original and natural way of building of Storks before the political habitations of men, and the raising of Houses and high Buildings; before they were invited by such conveniences and prepared Nests, to relinquish their natural places of nidulation. I say, before or where such advantages are not ready; when Swallows found other places than Chimneys, and Daws found other places than holes in high Fabricks to build in.