DECEMBER 261 



it perched up in the tops of oaks and of the 

 sour-gum trees. 



HOW MISTLETOE IS PLANTED 



The story of how the mistletoe gets on the 

 trees is to me a most interesting one. Cov- 

 ering the mistletoe twigs are pearly white 

 berries. These hang on to the plant until 

 the arrival of winter, when food is compar- 

 atively scarce, and hence some of our birds 

 eat them freely. Now, when a bird eats a 

 cherry he swallows simply the meat and 

 flips the stone away. The seed of the mis- 

 tletoe the bird cannot flip. It is sticky and 

 clings to his bill. His only resource is to 

 wipe it off, and he does so, leaving it stick- 

 ing to the branches of the tree on which he 

 is sitting. This seed sprouts after a time, 

 and, not finding earth, — which indeed its 

 ancestral habit has made it cease wanting, — 

 it sinks its roots into the bark of the tree 

 and hunts there for the pipes that carry the 

 sap. Now, the sap in the bark is the very 

 richest in the tree, far richer than that in 

 the wood, and the mistletoe gets from its 



