=BIRCH.=--According to Scandinavian mythology, the Birch (_Betula alba_) was consecrated to the god Thor, and symbolised the return of Spring. The Greeks and Romans had not much knowledge of the tree, but the latter seem to have regarded it with a feeling of dread in consequence of the _fasces_ of the magistracy being composed of it, as now, says Evelyn, “are the gentler rods of our tyrannical pedagogues for lighter faults.” According to Pliny, the celebrated books which Numa Pompilius composed seven hundred years before Christ, and which were buried with him, were written on the bark of the Birch-tree.----It is in the northern countries of Europe that the Birch flourishes, and it is there the tree is held in the highest esteem. The Russians have a proverb that the Birch excels in four qualities:--It gives light to the world (with Birch-boughs torches are made); it stifles cries (from Birch they extract a lubricant which they apply to the wheels of carriages); it cleanses (in Russian baths, to promote perspiration, they scourge the body with branches of Birch); it cures diseases (by incision they obtain a liquor stated to have all the virtues of the spirit of salt, and from which a wine is distilled, excellent as a cordial and useful in cases of consumption). Moreover, in Russia, the oil of the Birch is used as a vermifuge and a balsam in the cure of wounds. In fact, to the peasants of the North, the Birch is as beneficent as is the Palm to the Indians. No wonder, then, that the Russians are very fond of the Birch, and surround their dwellings with it; believing, as they do, that this tree is never struck by lightning.----On the Day of Pentecost, it is a custom among young Russian maidens to suspend garlands on the trees they love best, and they are careful to tie round the stems of the Birch-trees a little red ribbon as a charm to cause them to flourish and to protect them from the Evil Eye. De Gubernatis quotes from a Russian author named Afanassief, who tells us of a Birch that showed its appreciation of the kindly attentions of a young girl in decking its stem, by protecting her from the persecutions of a witch, who had become her step-mother; and the same author makes mention of a certain white Birch, which grew in the island of Buian, on the topmost of whose branches it was currently believed the Mother of God might be seen sitting.----Grohmann, a German writer, recounts the legend of a young shepherdess, who was spinning in the midst of a forest of Birch-trees, when suddenly the Wild Woman of the forest accosted her. The Wild Woman was dressed in white, and had a garland of flowers upon her head: she persuaded the shepherdess to dance with her, and for three days kept up the dance until sunset, but so lightly that the grass under her feet was neither trampled upon nor bent. At the conclusion of the dance, all the yarn was spun, and the Wild Woman was so satisfied, that she filled the pocket of the little shepherdess with Birch-leaves,