CENTURY VI. 259 



a seed, which many times she cannot digest, and 

 so expelleth it whole with her excrement : which 

 falling upon a bough of a tree that hath some rift, 

 putteth forth the misseltoe. But this is a fable, for 

 it is not probable that birds should feed upon that 

 they cannot digest, But allow that, yet it cannot 

 be for other reasons : for first, it is found but upon 

 certain trees ; and those trees bear no such fruit, as 

 may allure that bird to sit and feed upon them. It 

 may be, that bird feedeth upon the misseltoe-berries, 

 and so is often found there ; which may have given 

 occasion to the tale. But that which maketh an end 

 of the question is, that misseltoe hath been found to 

 put forth under the boughs, and not only above the 

 boughs ; so it cannot be any thing that falleth upon 

 the bough. Misseltoe groweth chiefly upon crab- 

 trees, apple-trees, sometimes upon hazles, and rarely 

 upon oaks ; the misseltoe whereof is counted very 

 medicinal. It is ever green winter and summer, 

 and beareth a white glistering berry : and it is a 

 plant utterly differing from the plant upon which it 

 groweth. Two things therefore may be certainly 

 set down : first, that superfcetation must be by 

 abundance of sap in the bough that putteth it forth : 

 secondly, that that sap must be such as the tree doth 

 excern, and cannot assimilate ; for else it would go 

 into a bough, and besides, it seemeth to be more fat 

 and unctuous than the ordinary sap of the tree ; both 

 by the berry, which is clammy ; and by that it con- 

 tinueth green winter and summer, which the tree 

 doth not. 



