It is very abundant, and now in winter the oak-trees which have adopted it seem from a distance to be draped in a golden tissue. The other variety is our own mistletoe and is strictly a parasite of the fir (a spruce fir, I don’t know its scientific name). It is also very abundant.” (M255) Thus in favour of identifying Virgil’s mistletoe (_viscum_) with _Loranthus_ rather than with common mistletoe it has been urged, first, that the berries of _Loranthus_ are bright yellow, whereas those of the mistletoe are of a greenish white; and, second, that the _Loranthus_ commonly grows on oaks, whereas mistletoe seldom does so, indeed in Italy mistletoe is said never to be found on an oak. Both these circumstances certainly speak strongly in favour of _Loranthus_; since Virgil definitely describes the berries as of a saffron-yellow (_croceus_) and says that the plant grew on a holm-oak. Yet on the other hand Virgil tells us that the plant put forth fresh leaves in the depths of winter (_brumali frigore_, strictly speaking, “the cold of the winter solstice”); and this would best apply to the common mistletoe, which is evergreen, whereas _Loranthus_ is deciduous.(799) Accordingly, if we must decide between the two species, this single circumstance appears to incline the balance in favour of common mistletoe. But is it not possible that Virgil, whether consciously or unconsciously, confused the two plants and combined traits from both in his description? Both parasites are common in Italy and in appearance they are much alike except for the colour of the berries. As a loving observer of nature, Virgil was probably familiar by sight with both, but he may not have examined them closely; and he might be excused if he thought that the parasite which he saw growing, with its clusters of bright yellow berries, on oaks in winter, was identical with the similar parasite which he saw growing, with its bunches of greenish white berries and its pale green leaves, on many other trees of the forest. The confusion would be all the more natural if the Celts of northern Italy, in whose country the poet was born, resembled the modern Celts of Brittany in attaching bunches of the common mistletoe to their cottages and leaving them there till the revolving months had tinged the pale berries, leaves, and twigs with a golden yellow, thereby converting the branch of mistletoe into a true Golden Bough. INDEX. Aachen, effigy burnt at, i. 120, ii. 25 Aargau, Swiss canton, of, Lenten fire-custom in, i. 119; superstition as to oak-mistletoe in, ii. 82; mistletoe called “thunder-besom” in, 85, 301; birth-trees in, 165 Abeghian, Manuk, on creeping through cleft trees in Armenia, ii. 172 Abensberg in Bavaria, burning the Easter Man at, i. 144 Abeokuta, use of bull-roarers at, ii. 229 _n._ Aber, the Lake of, in Upper Austria, ii. 189 Aberdeenshire, custom at reaping the last corn in, i. 12; need-fire in, 296; holed rock used by childless women in, ii. 187