aux Ours in Paris used annually to make a great wicker-work figure, dressed as a soldier, which they promenaded up and down the streets for several days, and solemnly burned on the 3d of July, the crowd of spectators singing _Salve Regina_. The burning fragments of the image were scattered among the people, who eagerly scrambled for them. The custom was abolished in 1743.(755) In Brie, Isle de France, a wicker-work giant, eighteen feet high, was annually burned on Midsummer Eve.(756) Again, the Druidical custom of burning live animals, enclosed in wicker-work, has its counterpart at the spring and midsummer festivals. At Luchon in the Pyrenees on Midsummer Eve “a hollow column, composed of strong wicker-work, is raised to the height of about sixty feet in the centre of the principal suburb, and interlaced with green foliage up to the very top; while the most beautiful flowers and shrubs procurable are artistically arranged in groups below, so as to form a sort of background to the scene. The column is then filled with combustible materials, ready for ignition. At an appointed hour—about 8 P.M.—a grand procession, composed of the clergy, followed by young men and maidens in holiday attire, pour forth from the town chanting hymns, and take up their position around the column. Meanwhile, bonfires are lit, with beautiful effect, in the surrounding hills. As many living serpents as could be collected are now thrown into the column, which is set on fire at the base by means of torches, armed with which about fifty boys and men dance around with frantic gestures. The serpents, to avoid the flames, wriggle their way to the top, whence they are seen lashing out laterally until finally obliged to drop, their struggles for life giving rise to enthusiastic delight among the surrounding spectators. This is a favourite annual ceremony for the inhabitants of Luchon and its neighbourhood, and local tradition assigns to it a heathen origin.”(757) In the midsummer fires formerly kindled on the Place de Grève at Paris it was the custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats; sometimes a fox was burned. The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home, believing that they brought good luck.(758) At Metz midsummer fires were lighted on the Esplanade, and six cats were burned in them.(759) In Russia a white cock was sometimes burned in the midsummer bonfire;(760) in Meissen or Thüringen a horse’s head used to be thrown into it.(761) Sometimes animals are burned in the spring bonfires. In the Vosges cats were burned on Shrove Tuesday; in Elsass they were thrown into the Easter bonfire.(762) We have seen that squirrels were sometimes burned in the Easter fire.