That the plucking of herbs and digging up of roots was a process very apt to be attended by magical procedure we find abundant evidence in the _Natural History_. Often plants should be plucked before sunrise.[302] Twice Pliny tells us that the peony should be uprooted by night lest the woodpecker of Mars try to pick the digger’s eyes out.[303] The state of the moon is another point to be observed,[304] and once an herb is to be gathered before thunder is heard.[305] A common instruction is to pick the plant with the left hand,[306] and once with the thumb and fourth finger of the left hand.[307] Once the right hand should be stretched covertly after the fashion of a pickpocket through the left sleeve in order to pluck the plant.[308] Sometimes one faces east in plucking herbs; sometimes, west; again one is careful not to face the wind.[309] Sometimes the gatherer must not glance behind him. Sometimes he must fast before he takes the plant from the ground;[310] again he must observe a state of chastity.[311] Sometimes he should be barefoot and clothed in white; again he should remove every stitch of clothing and even his rings.[312] Sometimes the use of iron implements is forbidden; again gold or some other material is prescribed;[313] once the herb is to be dug with a nail.[314] Sometimes circles are traced about the plant with the point of a sword.[315] Often the plant must not touch the ground again after it is picked,[316] presumably from a fear that its virtue would run off like an electric current. Pliny alludes at least three times[317] to the practice of herbalists of retaining portions of the herbs they sell, and then, if they are not paid in full, replanting the herb in the same spot with the idea that thereby the disease will return to plague the delinquent patient. Frequently one is directed to state why one plucks the herb or for whom it is intended.[318] In one case the digger says, “This is the herb Argemon which Minerva discovered was a remedy for swine who taste it.”[319] In another case one should salute the plant and extract its juice before saying a word; thus its virtue will be much greater.[320] In other cases, as an offering to appease the earth, the soil about the plant is soaked with hydromel three months before plucking it, or the hole left by pulling it up is filled with different kinds of grain.[321] Sometimes one sacrifices beforehand with bread and wine or prays to the gods for permission to gather the herb.[322] The customs of the Druids in gathering herbs are mentioned more than once.[323] In gathering the sacred mistletoe on the sixth day of the moon they hold sacrifices and a banquet beneath the tree.[324] Two white bulls are the victims; a priest clad in white cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle and receives it in a white cloak.[325] [Sidenote: Agricultural magic.]