68 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



decadence save in the northern counties of England. Both vale and 

 dale, however, survive as the terminations of many place-names in 

 England and the United States. Valley seems to be equivalent to 

 the lowland along a river's course, while vale and dale have to do with 

 smaller streams, or more often with woodland hollows. In the fol- 

 lowing passage there is evidently this view in the writer's mind: 



The Land higher up the Rivers throughout the whole country, is generally 

 a level Ground, with shallow Vallies, full of Streams and pleasant Springs of 

 clear water, having interspers'd here and there among the large Levels, some 

 small Hills, and extensive Vales. ( Beverley's ' Virginia.' ) 



In the south, and to some extent in the western states, the word 

 ' branch ' is widely used for brook. Beverley, in his account of Vir- 

 ginia, speaks of ' Gravelly Branches of Chrystal Streams.' Freshet, now 

 synonymous with the overflow or flooding of a stream, was formerly 

 used in the same sense as brook, as in the line of Milton above quoted. 

 The term is said to be locally in use in Maryland to-day. Once when 

 fishing along a small stream in southern Nova Scotia, a young lad 

 who accompanied me remarked that it was ' most too low a freshet for 

 good fishing.' This was a new meaning of the word to one who always 

 had associated it with floods, but it was without doubt a survival, in a 

 slightly altered form, of its original sense. The Anglo-Saxon Fersc, 

 from which the modern English ' fresh ' is derived, meant ' on the 

 move/ and was originally applied to ' running ' or ' fresh ' water. 

 Run, synonymous with brook, is a survival in America of ' rine,' 

 ' rindel ' and c runnel,' of old English dialects. 



The word 'rabbit' perpetuates a surprising want of observation on 

 the part of those who first gave this name to the American species. 

 The so-called ' rabbits ' of this country are hares, not rabbits. Yet one 

 would argue himself unknown who was pedantic enough to speak of 

 hare-shooting before the ' great unwashed democracy of America.' The 

 true rabbit is an old world species, makes burrows for its habitations, 

 and brings forth helpless, naked young, as every boy knows who has 

 kept tame rabbits. The wild ' cotton-tail ' of this country, and all its 

 kin, never burrow, but make a ' form ' like the true hares of Europe, 

 and the young are lively, well furred little creatures from the moment 

 of birth. 



America has lost some pleasing words which the English heart still 

 holds dear through many delightful associations. Copse and coppice 

 are thus lost to us on this side of the Atlantic. I feel sure that many 

 who live their lives in literature would be glad to call some beloved 

 patch of underwoods a ' coppice,' just for the sake of literary associa- 

 tions. One can do so to himself if he likes, but it is best to say 

 e thicket' to the world at large. And thicket is an old word and a 

 good one too, even when shortened to i thick/ as in provincial English. 

 It savors of wilder places than coppice, which refers to underwoods that 

 are annually cut for fuel and which put out fresh shoots each year, 



