THE PRIVET. 15 



be less fugitive than most vegetable greens prove to 

 be; but the march of science and the extension of com- 

 merce have supplied for a good dye others still better, and 

 the privet, as a tinctorial plant, has been supplanted by 

 other less known but more serviceable shrubs. Curtis 

 mentions that the berries are also used as a colouring for 

 wines those probably that are described in the multitudi- 

 nous wine circulars that pour in upon us from every side as 

 " very curious/' A more legitimate use for the berries is 

 as one of the items of the winter bill of fare of many of 

 our birds, the bullfinch being especially partial to them. 

 Though we have described the privet as an evergreen we 

 may be allowed to so far qualify this statement as to say 

 that we often noticed in hard winters that the leaves, while 

 retaining their position, frequently turn a purplish brown or 

 chocolate tint; but this feature is by no means unornamental, 

 especially when, as is ordinarily the case, the bunches of 

 black and glossy berries are freely intermixed with the 

 foliage. 



When growing in a wild state the privet attains to a 

 height of some six or seven feet, and forms a compact-look- 

 ing shrub. Haller mentions a variety having white 

 berries, but this we have never seen. Mathiolus affirms 

 that "the oyle that is made of the floures of privet 

 infused therein and set in the Sunne is singular good for 

 the inflammations of wounds/' and so forth ; and the plant 

 is also used, according to other authors, as a decoction, a 

 gargle, a " plaister/' or a ' ' powther/' for most of the ills 

 that flesh is heir to, from " the headache co naming of 

 choller " to consumption. 



Any one visiting their privet-hedge during August will 

 very probably find upon it one or more caterpillars of the 



