172 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
songster of the wood, the aberdevine. The sap of the 
birch makes the birclnwine of English housewifery, of 
which those who know how to make it are not a little 
proud : — 
“ And though she boasts no charms divine, 
Y^et she can make and serve birch-wine.’* 
Warton. 
It will flourish in English woods, and there is not a 
wood worth rambling in which has not many of these 
light, fairy creatures, pencilling the sky with their 
trembling, spidery network of leaves and branches. It 
was this same birch from which the Gauls extracted 
bitumen, and which the Russians now use to prepare the 
celebrated Russian leather; which the carpenter finds 
best of all wood for rafters, ploughs, spades, and carts; 
which the Highland peasants use for harness, ropes, and 
basket-work, and with which they symbolize, under the 
name of Betu or am leatlia , the elan of the Buchanans. 
It is the same birch as that from which our poor imbecile 
stump was cut, which forms the great forests of the 
North; which climbs up rugged mountain-sides, to peep 
over the precipices, and fling the light of vegetable grace 
and beauty over the giant solitudes of snow. It is the 
same birch which fills us with forest lore when we see 
its silvery stem towering up, straight as an arrow, to the 
sky, and waving its plumes of pensile beauty in the 
sunlight. 
The bonny broom,'* 
* Broom— A. S. brom ; Ger. besen ; D. beren , from D. bremmen , 
because the seeds when ripe, hurst from the pods with considerable 
noise. Itah scope garnatc; Sp. escobas ; Bus. metlii. 
