156 MIGRATION. 



difficult at this distance of time, to state with any degree of exact truth 

 which was the plant made use of by the Druids. As it may not be 

 impossible that the ingenious mis-translation of some antiquary may prove 

 to be the only authority of the accounts which have been handed down 

 to us of some, (if not all,) of the purposes to which the Druids applied 

 the Mistletoe. 



The Mistletoe is a parasite, which presents all the character of a 

 flowering shrub, but instead of rooting in the ground, has its base natur- 

 ally grafted upon some living tree, exactly as a scion is grafted upon a 

 stock artificially. It has its rings of wood, like other dicotyledons, and 

 these are formed year by year with those of the branch on which it 

 lives. It has green leaves, and is known to give off oxygen from them, 

 so that it is of a higher character than many other parasites, and performs 

 for itself part of the operations of assimilating the crude nutriment. 



In France it is called Misseldine; in Germany, Misti, or Missel; in 

 Italy, Visco, or Vischio; and in Spain, Legamodoga. 



Since our article in vol. i. was published, we have found it growing 

 on the Robinia Pseudacasia. at Hatch, near Taunton, Somersetshire; and 

 on the same road, about two miles from Taunton, in a large hedge-row 

 may be seen twenty-three apple trees quite covered with this parasite. 



The berries have, from a very early period been used as bird-lime, which, 

 Gerard says, is greatly to be preferred to bird-lime made from the holly. 

 They are eaten by the blackbird, fieldfare, and common thrush, as well as 

 by the missel thrush. 



As a medicine, the Mistletoe was frequently employed in England as a 

 cure for epilepsy, but it no longer holds a place in the British materia medica. 



As we have before stated, we shall feel extremely obliged if any cor- 

 respondent will record any oak trees on which they have seen this parasite 

 grow. 



MIGRATION. 



BY O. S. ROUND, ESQ. 



In speaking of our land-birds, those kinds which are only sojourners in 

 this country during the more genial seasons of the year, necessarily 

 demand a large portion of our attention; and as the subject of their 

 annual visit forms the chief feature of their interesting lives, it is one 

 which cannot be passed in silence. The economy of nature in this par- 

 ticular is very remarkable; all those kinds which migrate, or change 

 their residence to other regions at stated times, are formed only to exist 

 in a temperate climate, and cannot sustain the least severity of cold. 

 This has nothing to do with their size and tenderness, for some of our 



