The Scottish Naturalist. 127 



Malvern, maol, and bearna, a gap. To soften, by making it less 

 bitter, as "dean maol e," make it mild. Hence mulberry, mild- 

 berry (Canon Bourke). 



Amentifer^e and Cupulifer^e. 



Catkin-hearers — Gaelic : eaitean, the blossom of osiers. 



" 'Nis treigidh coileach a ghucag 



'S caitcan brucach nan craobh." — M 'Donald. 



Now the cock will forsake the buds 

 And the spotted catkins of the trees. 



Quercus — Said in botanical works to be from the Celtic, quer, 

 fine. There is no such word in any Celtic dialect, and even 

 Pictet has failed, after expending two pages on it, to explain it. 



Q. robur — ("Robur comes from the Celtic, ro, excelling, and 

 bur, development" — Canon Bourke). The oak. Gaelic and 

 Irish : dair, genitive daracli, sometimes written darag, dur, drii. 

 Sanskrit : dm, dntma, dn/ta, a tree, the tree ; daru, a wood. 



" Samhach' us mora bha 'n triath, 



Mar dharaig 's i Hath air Lubar, 

 A chaill a dlu-dheug o shean 



Le dealan glan nan speur, 

 Tha 'h-aomadh thar sruth o shliabh, 



A coinneach mar chiabh a fuaim." — Ossi^/C^ /*■ 



Silent and great was the prince 



Like an oak-tree hoary on Lubar, 

 Stripped of its thick and aged boughs 



By the keen lightning of the sky, 

 It bends across the stream from the hill, 



Its moss sounds in the wind like hair. 



Om, omna, the oak (O'Reilly). " Cormac, King of Cashel, Ire- 

 land, a.d. 903, says of onifia that it equals fuamna, sounds, or 

 noises, because the winds resound when the branches of the 

 oak resist its passage. According to Varro, it is from os, mouth, 

 and men, mind, thinking — that is, telling out what one thinks is 

 likely to come. Cicero agrees with this, ' Osmen voces hom- 

 inum ' " — Canon Bourke. Compare Latin : omen, a sign, aprog- 

 nostication, — it being much used in the ceremonies of the 

 Druids. Omna, a lance, or a spear, these implements being 

 made from the wood of the oak. Greek : 86pv, a spear, because 

 made of wood or oak. Eitheae/i, oak, from eit/iim, to eat, an 

 old form of ith. Latin : ed-ere, as " oak" is derived from ak 

 (Old German) to eat (the acorn). The "oak" was called 

 Quercus eseulus by the Latins. Rail, railaidh, oak. 



