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We have, in a previous chapter, seen that among the Bengalese 

 there still exists the pradlice of hanging sickly infants in baskets 

 upon trees, and leaving them there to die. Certain of the wild 

 tribes of India — the Puharris, for example — when burying their 

 infants, place them in earthen pots, and strew leaves over them: 

 these pots they deposit at the foot of trees, sometimes covering 

 them over with brushwood. Similar burial is given to those who 

 die of measles or small-pox : the corpse is placed at the foot of a 

 tree, and left in the underwood or heather, covered with leaves 

 and branches. In about a year the parents repair to the grave- 

 tree, and there, beneath its boughs, take part in a funeral feast. 



Grotius states that the Greeks and Romans believed that 

 spirits and ghosts of men delighted to wander and appear in the 

 sombre depths of groves devoted to the sepulture of the departed, 

 and on this account Plato gave permission for trees to be planted 

 over graves — as Evelyn states, "to obumbrate and refresh them." 

 Since then the custom of planting trees in places devoted to the 

 burial of the dead has become universal, and the trees thus sele(5led 

 have in consequence come to be regarded as funereal. 



As a general rule, the trees to which this funereal signification 

 has been attached are those of a pendent or weeping charadler, 

 and those which are distinguished by their dark and sombre foliage, 

 black berries and fruits, and melancholy-looking blossoms. Others 

 again have been planted in God's acre on account of the symbolical 

 meaning attached to their form or nature. Thus, whilst the Aloe, 

 the Yew, and the Cypress are suggestive of life, from their perpetual 

 verdure, they typify in floral symbology respecftively grief, sorrow, 

 and mourning. The Bay is an emblem of the resurre(ftion, inas- 

 much as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, when to all outward 

 appearance it is dead and withered, it will unexpecftedly revive 

 from the root, and its dry leaves resume their pristine vitality. 

 Evergreen trees and shrubs, whose growth is like a pyramid or 

 spire, the apex of which points heavenward, are deemed em- 

 blematic of eternity, and as such are fitly classed among funereal 

 trees : the Arbor Vitae and the Cypress are examples. The weeping 

 Birch and Willow and the Australian Casuarina, with their foliage 

 mournfully bending to the earth, fitly find their place in church- 

 yards as personifications of woe. 



The Yew-tree has been considered an emblem of mourning 

 from a very early period. The Greeks adopted the idea from the 

 Egyptians, the Romans from the Greeks, and the Britons from the 

 Romans., From long habits of association, the Yew acquired a 

 sacred characfter, and therefore was considered as the best and 

 most appropriate ornament of consecrated ground. Hence in 

 England it became the custom to plant Yews in churchyards, 

 despite the ghastly superstition attached to these trees, that they 

 prey upon the dead who lie beneath their sombre shade. More- 

 over our forefathers were particularly careful in preserving this 



