Origin of the Song of Birds, 567 



T/ie Milky Thistle, — The fable which accounts for the 

 origin of the milky way has been oft admired for its beauty; 

 and those of rural observers, 



" Whose souls proud science never taught to stray 

 Far as the solar walk, or milky way," 



associate a similar idea, and one of equal interest to them, 

 with the milky thistle, or Virgin Mary's thistle ( Card u us 

 Mana^?W5 L., «Silybum Maria^/ww Gaertner) : its leaves exhibit 

 a beautiful tracery of milk-coloured marking, and the plant 

 is reputed to have derived this condition of its leaves from an 

 accident assumed to have occurred to the person of the second 

 fable, like to that which has been assumed to have happened 

 to the ideal person of the first. 



The Leaves of Polygonum Persicdria, a plant common in 

 most damp ground in which the soil is stirred occasionally, are 

 usually marked towards the centre with a dark-coloured spot, 

 and those of the P, /apathifolium sometimes are ; and I have 

 been told that, in Scotland, a traditionary legend prevails 

 regarding one of these species, most probably it is the P. 

 Persicaria, which ascribes the origin of the spot-mark in its 

 leaves to the accident of a drop of blood having fallen, at the 

 crucifixion, upon a plant of this species which was then grow- 

 ing near to the foot of the cross. 



Of Superstitions relative to the Application of the Human 

 Spittle, there are many, as is shown in the York Courant news- 

 paper of Sept. 11. 1834, in an extract from " Dalyell on the 

 Superstitions of Scotland." Reference is made to those re- 

 corded by Pliny and other ancient writers, and it is added, 

 that, " with equal confidence, the moderns spit into their 

 hands when they fight, and spit under the humiliation of dis- 

 comfiture ; they spit on money received in traffic, on throwing 

 aside the combings of their hair, on wounds in the flesh, and 

 on the bite of venomous snakes to cure it ; they spit as a token 

 of the most sovereign contempt ; and, in one of the remotest 

 Scottish islets, spitting into the grave forms part of the funeral 

 ceremony." — J. D. 



Art. III. Thoughts in relation to the Questions on the Mode of 

 Origin of Song in Birds (III. 145. 447.; IV. 420. ; VII. 245. 

 484.). By W. H. Y. 



The Song of Birds is innate. — I am surprised to find 

 (III. 447.) that Mr. Sweet is of opinion [as are Bingley and 

 other naturalists] that the song of birds is acquired, and not 

 innate : if he were a phrenologist, as well as an ornithologist, 



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