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plants.

E have seen how, among the ancient races of the earth, traditions existed which connected the origin of man with certain trees. In the Bundehesh, man is represented as having first appeared on earth under the form of the plant Reiva (Rheum ribes). In the Iranian account of man's creation, the primal couple are stated to have first grown up as a single tree, and at muturity to have been separated and endowed with a distinct existence by Ormuzd. In the Scandinavian Edda, men are represented as having sprung from the Ash and Poplar. The Greeks traced the origin of the human race to the maternal Ash; and the Romans regarded the Oak as the progenitor of all mankind. The conception of human trees was present in the mind of the Prophet Isaiah, when he predicted that from the stem of Jesse should come forth a rod, and from his roots, a branch. The same idea is preserved in the genealogical trees of modern heraldry; and the marked analogy between man and trees has doubtless given rise to the custom of planting trees at the birth of children. The old Romans were wont to plant a tree at the birth of a son, and to judge of the prosperity of the child by the growth and thriving of the tree. It is said in the life of Virgil, that the Poplar planted at his birth flourished exceedingly, and far outstripped all its contemporaries. De Gubernatis records that, as a rule, in Germany, they plant Apple-trees for boys, and Pear-trees for girls. In Polynesia, at the birth of an infant, a Cocoa-nut tree is planted, the nodes of which are supposed to indicate the number of years promised to the little stranger.

According to a legend that Hamilton found current in Central India, the Khatties had this strange origin. When the five sons of Pandu (the heroes whose exploits are told in the Mahabhȧ

rata) had become simple tenders of flocks, Karna, their illegitimate brother, wishing to deprive them of these their last resource, prayed the gods to assist him: then he struck the earth with his staff, which was fashioned from the branch of a tree. The staff instantly opened, and out of it sprang a man, who said that his name was Khat, a word which signifies" begotten of wood." Karna employed this tree-man to steal the coveted cattle, and the Khatties claim to be descended from this strange forefather.

The traditions of trees that brought forth human beings, and of trees that were in themselves partly human, are current among most of the Aryan and Semitic races, and are also to be found among the Sioux Indians. These traditions (which have been previously noticed in Chapter VII.) have probably given rise to others, which represent certain trees as bearing for fruit human beings and the members of human beings.

In the fourteenth century, an Italian voyager, Odoricus du Frioul, on arriving at Malabar, heard the natives speaking of trees which, instead of fruit, bore men and women: these creatures were scarcely a yard high, and their nether extremities were attached to the tree's trunk, like branches. Their bodies were fresh and radiant when the wind blew, but on its dropping, they became gradually withered and dried up.

In the first book of the Mahâbhâvata, reference is made, in the legend of Garuda, to an enormous Indian Fig-tree (Ficus religiosa), from the branches of which are suspended certain devotees of dwarfed proportions, called Valakhilyas.

Among the Arabs, there exists a tradition of an island in the Southern Ocean called Wak-Wak, which is so-named because certain trees growing thereon produce fruit having the form of a human head, which cries Wak! Wak!

Among the Chinese, the myth of men being descended from trees is reversed, for we find a legend current in the Flowery Land that, in the beginning, the herbs and plants sprang from the hairs of a cosmic giant.

The Chinese, however, preserve the tradition of a certain lake by whose margin grew great quantities of trees, the leaves of which when developed became changed into birds. In India, similar trees are referred to in many of the popular tales: thus, in The Rose of Bakavali " mention is made of a garden of Pomegranatetrees, the fruit of which resembled earthenware vases. When these were plucked and opened, out hopped birds of beautiful plumage, which immediately flew away.

Pope Pius II., in his work on Asia and Europe, published towards the end of the fifteenth century, states that in Scotland there grew on the banks of a river a tree which produced fruits resembling ducks; these fruits, when matured, fell either on the river bank or into the water: those which fell on the ground perished instantly; those which fell into the water became turned

at once into ducks, acquired plumage, and then flew off. His Holiness remarks that he had been unable to obtain any proof of this wondrous tree existing in Scotland, but that it was to be found growing in the Orkney Isles.

As early as the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus expressed his disbelief in the stories of birds propagated from trees, yet there were not wanting writers who professed to have been eye-witnesses of the marvels they recounted respecting Bernicle or Člaik Geese. Some of these witnesses, however, asserted that the birds grew on living trees, while others traced them to timber rotted in the sea, or boughs of trees which had fallen therein. Boëce, who favoured the latter theory, writes that "because the rude and ignorant people saw oft-times the fruit that fell off the trees (which stood near the sea) converted within a short time into geese, they believed that yir-geese grew upon the trees, hanging by their nebbis [bills] such like as Apples and other fruits hangs by their stalks, but their opinion is nought to be sustained. For as soon as their Apples or fruit falls off the tree into the sea-flood, they grow first wormeaten, and by short process of time are altered into geese.' Munster, in his Cosmographie,' remembers that in Scotland "are found trees which produce fruit rolled up in leaves, and this, in due time, falling into water, which it overhangs, is converted into a living bird, and hence the tree is called the Goose-tree. The same tree grows in the island of Pomona. Lest you should imagine that this is a fiction devised by modern writers, I may mention that all cosmographists, particularly Saxo Grammaticus, take notice of this tree.' Prof. Rennie says that Montbeillard seems inclined to derive the name of Pomona from its being the orchard of these goose-bearing trees. Fulgosus depicts the trees themselves as resembling Willows, "as those who had seen them in Ireland and Scotland" had informed him. To these particulars, Bauhin adds that, if the leaves of this tree fall upon the land, they become birds; but if into the water, then they are transmuted into fishes.

Maundevile speaks of the Barnacle-tree as a thing known and proved in his time. He tells us, in his book, that he narrated to the somewhat sceptical inhabitants of Caldilhe how that " in oure contre weren trees that beren a fruyt that becomen briddes fleiynge: and thei that fallen on the erthe dyen anon: and thei ben right gode to mannes mete."

Aldrovandus gives a woodcut of these trees, in which the foliage resembles that of Myrtles, while the strange fruit is large and heart-shaped.

Gerarde also gives a figure of what he calls the "Goose-tree, Barnacle-tree, or the tree bearing geese," a reproduction of which is annexed. And although he speaks of the goose as springing from decayed wood, &c., the very fact of his introducing the tree into the catalogue of his Herbal,' shows that he was, at least, divided between the above-named opinions. "What our eyes

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