MISTLETOE. 301 



Males. 



Besides the large specimens just described, some smaller ones 

 were always present in the sea-urchin hosts. They measured 

 50-200 mm. in length, and they resemble the large ones so 

 closely in essential points of structure that they must be re- 

 garded as belonging to the same species — of which, indeed, they 

 seem to me to be the males. The tail end is almost always 

 curved in a spiral with two or three turns, and it carries near 

 its tip two equal spicula. Transverse sections of the body 

 show, in place of the ovary, two tubes of tissue, with many 

 nuclei. These tubes are no doubt testes, but I have not yet 

 examined any that happened to be mature. 



Mistletoe. 



By George Paxton. 



[Read 19th December, 1901.] 



" On Christmas eve the bells were rung, 

 On Christmas eve the mass was sung, 

 That only night in all the year, 

 Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear ; 

 The damsel donned her kirtle sheen, 

 The hall was dressed with holly green, 

 Forth to the wood did merry men go 

 To gather in the Mistletoe. "—Scott. 



What is the connection between Christmas and mistletoe? We 

 must look back as far as the days of the Druids to find out the 

 beginning of this. 



When the winter solstice, or shortest day, arrived, the 

 Druidical priests led the people to the woodlands, and with 

 great pomp and ceremony cut down the sacred mistletoe. 



Two white bulls were tied to the tree, the chief Druid, in robes 

 of white, ascended its trunk, and with a golden sickle cut the 

 sacred parasite. The bulls were then sacrificed, and festivities 



