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As regards the spread of Mistletoe in New South Wales, I cannot do better than 
quote a report by the late Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, sometime Member for 
Wilcannia, and at the time of his death an inspector of conditional purchases in the far 
west. He had a long and intimate acquaintance with the western country. His report 
was made in 1899, to the Under-Secretary for Lands, from whom I received it : 
" A large quantity of valuable fodder trees have already been destroyed by 
Mistletoe, and, judging by appearances, the results are likely to be more serious in the 
future, as it is rapidly spreading in all the Mulga country I passed through, fully 75 per 
cent, of the trees being more or less attacked by this parasite. 
" What is generally known as Acacia has been destroyed in large quantities, 
and will shortly, I fear, be a thing of the past. Although the Mulga (also of the Acacia 
family) has been destroyed to a considerable extent in places, it does not seem to succumb 
as rapidly as does the Acacia proper. 
" Two things in connection with this matter are somewhat curious, viz. : Firstly, 
that the alarming spread of the mistletoe has only been noticeable of late years. Secondly, 
that it does not seem to affect the inedible trees the Mallee, for instance, being perfectly 
free from its attack. Seeing that the Mulga is distributed over a considerable portion 
of the Western Division, and is, perhaps, the most valuable of all our fodder trees (being 
the chief stand-by in times of drought), this question is one of importance, and well 
deserving of scientific inquiry." 
Years ago Dr. E. P. Ramsay pointed out that a little bird called the Swallow 
dicoeum (Dicceum hirundinaceum) was instrumental in the dissemination of mistletoe 
in Australia and in many districts throughout the continent it is, in consequence, known 
as the " mistletoe bird." In Europe this work is performed by the " mistletoe or mistle 
thrush," the Turdus visdvorus of Linnaeus. 
A few years ago, in the columns of the Victorian Naturalist, Mr. H. F. C. Ash worth 
tells us how he armed himself with a telescope and watched these little birds at work 
in a box-tree, and this is what he saw : He showed that it is not necessary, in all cases, 
for the mistletoe berries to pass through the bodies of birds before germination. He 
points out that after plucking a fruit the bird abstracts the seed, with its sticky covering, 
through an opening in the top, formed by nearly biting it through, and thus forming a 
sort of lid. Nor is this all, for in the act of picking the fruit a small hole is left where the 
stalk joined it, and this must greatly facilitate the sucking or squeezing out of the 
contents. The ground underneath each of these trees was strewn with several hundreds 
of these discarded berries, each with a lid at one end and a small hole at the other. The 
seeds are voided by the birds and adhere to the branches on which they have been sitting, 
as do others which have been removed from the fruit by the birds and are directly placed 
on the branch by the bird in the act of wiping its beak. 
Mr. F. W. Keeble, in his research on the Ceylon Mistletoes (Loranthus), states 
that the bird known there as the " parasite bird " (Dicoeum erythrorhynchum) has 
adopted the habit of squeezing the seed out of the fruit and rejecting the fruit coat, and 
that, as a rule, the birds do not swallow the seeds. 
