THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 527 



It is to the thrushes, which eat with avidity the fruit of 

 the mistletoe, that we owe the propagation of this sacred 

 plant, so celebrated in ancient Gaul, and which the Druids 

 gathered with a golden sickle. 



As Theophrastus remarked, these birds swallow the ber- 

 ries of the mistletoe. But as the pulp alone is absorbed, 

 and as the seeds defy their digestive powers, these, like the 

 worm of Hamlet, which only effects its migration by trav- 

 ersing the body of a beggar, fall with the excrement upon 

 the branches, and there take root. Here the mistletoe soon 

 forms those parasitical tufts which invade the crowns of the 

 giants of our forests, beautiful globular tufts, decorated 

 with perpetual verdure when winter has already stripped of 

 leaves their powerful supporter. 1 



Other birds also propagate a great number of plants by 

 similar means. Travellers relate that the Dutch having de- 

 stroyed the nutmeg-trees in several of the Indian Islands, in 

 order to confine the cultivation of these trees to Ceylon, the 

 nutmeg-eating pigeons, which are very fond of this fruit, 

 sowed the tree afresh in almost every spot where Dutch 

 vandalism had extirpated it. The pulp of these fruits be- 

 ing all that is absorbed by the process of digestion, the 

 seed is voided by these birds intact and still capable of ger- 

 mination. 



The part played by birds in the general harmony of the 

 globe does not end here. According to some botanists, it is 

 the birds that carry off the coral-red service-berries, and 



1 Once adherent to the branch, the seed of the mistletoe germinates there, 

 plunges its root into the bark, and lives at the expense of the tree. The stalks of 

 this plant possess the peculiarity of extending with equal facility in every direc- 

 tion. The fruit is white, and of the size of a currant. 



