“The sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turned when he rose.”
Very pretty as a poetic fancy, but as a matter of fact the sunflower does not turn either to the rising or the setting sun. It receives its name solely because it resembles a picture sun. It is not a heliotrope or turnsun.
Female birds in general do not sing, but as poets are not naturalists, they fall into a common error, as the following quotations show:
“And in the violet-embroidered vale
Where the love-lorn Nightingale
Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.”
—Milton, “Comus.”
“And Philomel her song with tears doth steep.”
—Spencer, “Shepherd’s Calendar.”