Feb. 1, 1S69.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



31. 



dock which produces burrs ; and the Mallow [Malva 

 sylvestris) is Round-dock Sedge, serge, segs, or 

 seggins— A.-S. scecg, a small sword, from the sharp 

 foliage— is applied by the ignorant to nearly all 

 plants with lanceolate leaves, even to the Polyanthus 

 Narcissus. Mr. Holland states that among country 

 people in many places much less attention is paid 

 to the distinctions to be observed in the flowers 

 than to the differences to be seen in the leaves of 

 plants, and the above instances support this con- 

 clusion. 



And here, for the present, I must leave the sub- 

 ject. I had intended to direct attention to the 

 large class of names which are applied only to one 

 or two species ; to show the peculiarities from 

 which these names originated; and to point out 

 how many have been suggested by the likeness 

 of parts of the plants bearing them to some natural 

 or well-known object, or by their use in certain 

 diseases, and how many names of places and peo- 

 ple are derived from plants. I would have men- 

 tioned some which have an ominous sound, some 

 which are quaint, some which are amusing, some to 

 which curious legends are attached. Space, how- 

 ever, will not allow me to do this on the present 

 occasion ; and this paper must be taken rather as 

 giving a general idea of the various sources whence 

 plant-names are derived, than as showing the fitness 

 of their application to particular species. At some 

 future period I hope to supplement it with one 

 devoted more especially to the local names actually 

 in use at the present day. I have introduced them 

 here wherever an opportunity offered, but they de- 

 mand much more attention than we are now able to 

 give. The various names by which the same plant 

 is known in different counties ; the variations even 

 of the same name which different counties present, 

 may possibly be found to have some connection with 

 original ethnological differences in the population 

 of particular districts. I trust that there are yet 

 some among the readers of Science-Gossip who 

 have not communicated lists, who will be both able 

 and willing to assist in the work. 



In conclusion, I will quote a passage from the 

 Cornhill Magazine for July, 1S65, asking my readers 

 to compare it with the one cited at the commence- 

 ment of this paper, and leaving them to draw for 

 themselves a conclusion as to which estimate of 

 local names is the more correct : — " Science cannot, 

 at present, afford to throw hard words at provin- 

 cialisms. Too often, in her nomenclature, has she 

 failed to interpret Nature ; too often only given us 

 the skeleton leaf instead of the flower. A long list 

 of provincialisms might be given, where by a word a 

 whole train of associations is aroused, and the close 



relationship of all things shown Many of 



our most expressive terms are fast dying out 



As schools are built, and schoolmasters 



increase, so will the old-world words perish in the 



struggle with the new." Let us, then, before they 

 have perished altogether, endeavour to preserve as 

 many of them as possible ; and, while fully appre- 

 ciating the advantages and privileges which the 

 " march of intellect " brings in its train, let us regard 

 with a feeling of reverence, if not of admiration, the 

 relics which yet remain to us of the people departed 

 and of the days gone by. 



James Britten. 



IANTHINA. 



[The Violet Sea-Snail.) 



f\ P all the Oceanides, daughters of Oceanus and 

 ^-^ Tethys, none was fairer than Ianthe, the 

 beloved of the Grecian mariners of old. When 

 iEolus let loose his wild winds to hold their mad 

 revels on the high seas, the storm -tossed sailors 

 sacrificed a black bull and prayed to this sea-nymph 

 with the azure tresses to quell the riot ; and when 

 the bosom of the blue JEgean lay all unruffled, and 

 favouring airs wafted their galleys smoothly past 

 the vineclad isles, they gave her a milk-white lamb 

 as their thank-offering. 



A fairy fragile turbinated shell of deepest violet 

 is Ianthe's ocean chariot, in which she rides gaily on 

 the summer seas, where palm-trees wave over coral 

 islands, whereArgonauta swims, and Physalia flashes 

 iridescent in the sun, and the air is fragrant with 

 orange-blossoms. But no mere fair-weather sailor 

 is the sea-god's daughter ; she braves the broadest 

 waters of old Neptune's vast domain ; travelling on 

 the Gulf Stream to visit the shores of green Erin ; 

 the Cornish fishermen meet her amongst the pil- 

 chards off the rugged cliffs of the Laud's End ; and 

 half-stifled townsmen rushing from the stuffy close- 

 ness of busy cities to draw the breath of life fresh 

 by the pure free fountain's brim, behold her dancing 

 on the ripple in Swansea and Whitesand Bay. 



A charming object is this blue pelagic shell, and 

 worthy of much admiring study is its curious in- 

 habitant. The bibliography of the Ianthinidce is 

 extensive, and readers must be sorely puzzled by 

 the contradictory statements and dissimilar plates 

 of different works : how many writers, how few 

 observers. " A Phytophagous Tracheliopod," says 

 one; "Exclusively carnivorous," says another; 

 " Passes the greater part of its life at the bottom," 

 writes a third ; " Is wholly without the power of 

 sinking," positively declares a fourth (fig. 17). 



This is Ianthina communis, as seen floating at the 

 surface, drawn from a living specimen, one of many 

 taken in the South Atlantic. 



"Where in all the long catalogue of families are 

 we to place this snail-like gasteropodous mollusc ? 

 Her " settlement " seems to be as puzzling as the 

 parish rights of the destitute vagrant stranded at 

 Aberdeen, whose father was an Irish American, and 

 whose mother was a Welsh convict of Van Diemen's 



