"Then the fever passes into the tree." Perhaps it was in this way that the aspen learned to tremble. But among the gypsies in the south of Hungary, among whom the vaccination or inoculation of trees is greatly the fashion, a hole is bored into the wood, into which the patient spits thrice, repeats the spell, and then stops the hole with a plug. The boring of holes in trees or transferring illness to them is also practised without formulas of speech. Thus, if while a man is lying down or sitting in the spring he hears the song of the cuckoo he believes that he will be ill all the time for a year to come, especially with fevers, unless he goes nine times to a tree, bores a hole in it, and spits into it three times. Then he is safe. In German mythology "the cuckoo is a bird which brings bad luck" (Friedrich), and the inhabitants of Haiterbach were so persuaded of this that they introduced a prayer against it into their church service, whence they got the name of cuckoos (Wolf, "Zeitschrift für Deutsche Myth.," vol. i. p. 440). It announces to men the infidelity of wives, and tells listeners how many years they have to live. It is possible that this is a relic of an old form of sacrifice, or proof that the idea occurs to all men of thus making a casket of a tree. The occasional discovery of stone axe-heads in very old trees in America renders this probable. And where the wood grows up and encloses the object it would very rarely happen that it would ever be discovered. It should be added to the previous instance that when they have closed the hole, the Transylvanian gypsies eat some of the bark of the next tree. Another cure for fever is effected by going in the morning before sunrise to the bank of a stream, and digging a hole with some object--for instance, a knife--which has never been used. Into this hole the patient makes water, then fills up the hole, saying:-- "Shilályi ác kathe Ná ává kiyá mánge! Sutyárá andré cik! Avá kiyá mánge Káná káthe ná hin páñi!" "Fever stay here! Do not come to me! Dry up in dust, Come unto me When no water is here." Dr. Wlislocki translates this last line, "When there is no more water in the river," which is certainly what is meant. "While water runs or grass grows," &c. is a formula common to all countries. Another cure for fever is this: the patient must take a kreutzer, an egg, and a handful of salt, and before sunrise go with them to a cross-road, throw them away backwards, and repeat:-- "Káná ádálá kiyá mánge áven Ava tu kiya mánge shilályi." "When these things again I see, Fever then return to me."