But the rose is not the only plant for which the nightingale is said to
have a predilection, there being an old notion that its song is never heard
except where cowslips are to be found in profusion. Experience,
however, only too often proves the inaccuracy of this assertion. We may
also quote the following note from Yarrell's "British Birds" (4th ed., i.
316):--"Walcott, in his 'Synopsis of British Birds' (vol. ii. 228), says that the
nightingale has been observed to be met with only where the cowslip
grows kindly, and the assertion receives a partial approval from
Montagu; but whether the statement be true or false, its converse
certainly cannot be maintained, for Mr. Watson gives the cowslip
(Primula veris) as found in all the 'provinces' into which he divides Great
Britain, as far north as Caithness and Shetland, where we know that the
nightingale does not occur." A correspondent of Notes and Queries (5th
Ser. ix. 492) says that in East Sussex, on the borders of Kent, "the cowslip
is quite unknown, but nightingales are as common as blackberries there."
A similar idea exists in connection with hops; and, according to a
tradition current in Yorkshire, the nightingale made its first appearance
in the neighbourhood of Doncaster when hops were planted. But this, of
course, is purely imaginary, and in Hargrove's "History of
Knaresborough" (1832) we read: "In the opposite wood, called Birkans
Wood (opposite to the Abbey House), during the summer evenings, the
nightingale:--
'Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal lay.'"
Of the numerous stories connected with the origin of the mistletoe,
one is noticed by Lord Bacon, to the effect that a certain bird, known as
the "missel-bird," fed upon a particular kind of seed, which, through its
incapacity to digest, it evacuated whole, whereupon the seed, falling on
the boughs of trees, vegetated and produced the mistletoe. The magic
springwort, which reveals hidden treasures, has a mysterious connection
with the woodpecker, to which we have already referred. Among further
birds which are in some way or other connected with plants is the eagle,
which plucks the wild lettuce, with the juice of which it smears its eyes
to improve its vision; while the hawk was supposed, for the same
purpose, to pluck the hawk-bit.
Similarly, writes Mr. Folkard, [1] pigeons and doves made use of
vervain, which was termed "pigeon's-grass." Once more, the cuckoo,
according to an old proverbial rhyme, must eat three meals of cherries
before it ceases its song; and it was formerly said that orchids sprang
from the seed of the thrush and the blackbird. Further illustrations might