MISSELTOE. 113 



and as soon as they have pierced the bark, the round bodies 

 open, and their aperture resembles in shape a little funnel, the 

 interior of which is lined with a viscous grained substance. 

 From the centre and edges of this orifice proceed small fibres, 

 which insinuate themselves between the lamina of the bark, 

 even to the wood, which, however, they do not penetrate." 

 Dutrochet observes, that the radicle of the seed does not, as 

 with other plants, tend towards the centre of the earth during 

 its development, but towards the centre of the mass of matter — 

 the trunk or branch of the tree to which it may be attached ; so 

 that if placed on one side, it grows horizontally or laterally, 

 and if below it shoots directly upwards. Aristotle* and others 

 of the ancients imagined that the seed would not grow unless it 

 passed through the intestines of a bird. Bauhin, Scaliger, and 

 some comparatively modern writers, rejecting this opinion as 

 fabulous, have taken up a more erroneous hypothesis, viz. 

 that the plant is not produced from seed, being a kind of 

 excrescence on the tree to which it is attached -f\ 



The Misseltoe was an object of the most superstitious regard 

 among our Saxon ancestors. When growing on the oak it was 

 considered the peculiar gift of the gods, and was gathered by 

 the Druidical priest himself, clothed in a white robe, and armed 

 with a golden sickle. This ceremony was performed annually, 

 and was accompanied with the sacrifice of two white bulls and 

 a repast under the oak ; hymns were then sung in honour of 

 the divinity, and prayers were offered for a blessing on their 



* De Gen. Animal, lib. i. c. 1. 



•f See Bauhin's Pinax, 493 — Scaliger, Exercit. 168.— Gerard, Em. 1350. 

 — Colba,tch(Dissertation concerning Misseltoe, p. 7-) gives a better account 

 of it, in the following words : — " The Misseltoe thrush, during the winter, 

 is nourished from the pulp of the berries, but the seeds are discharged with 

 the excrement, undigested. Now the excrement, being of a slimy nature, 

 sticks fast to the branches of the tree upon which it falls ; and if there be 

 any crack in the bark, there the seed lodges itself, and produces a plant the 

 next year. It has been often propagated by cutting a slit into the bark 

 of a tree, and sticking in a seed." — As the plant furnishes bird-lime, the 

 thrush might thus be said to cause his own destruction : hence the proverb 

 xt%\a. x i ^> u aurr > »**<>*■> (turdus cacat in sui excidium,) or, as the old 

 doggrel expresses it — 



" The thrush, when he pollutes the bough, 

 Sows for himself the seeds of woe." 



