250 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



[Nov. 1, 1S6S. 



the ripe seed and continue flowering ; but this yea 

 the dry spikes of seed have grown again at the point, 

 and are now crowned with beautiful long spikes of 

 flowers. These effects have not been confined to 

 gardens and garden flowers, for many of the wild 

 plants have sprouted in the same way— the irre- 

 pressible docks and thistles especially. Linum 

 catharticum, too, has sprouted at the roots exactly in 

 the same way as the Crimson Elax in the gardens. 



A good deal of alarm has been expressed with 

 regard to the ackerspritting of the potatoes, and 

 there is no question but that potatoes that are 

 so affected are irrecoverably spoiled. The parent 

 tubers are soft and of little value, whilst there 

 caimot be time in any case for the second crop to come 

 to maturity. But even these damaged potatoes are 

 excellent cattle-food, and with respect to the main 

 crop, I think we need have no apprehension what- 

 ever, for all varieties are not ackersprit, nor are the 

 majority of the plants affected, whilst the dry 

 summer has had such a beneficial effect on the plant 

 generally, that there is no potato disease to be found 

 throughout the whole of the land, and as far as my 

 own experience goes, the potatoes that are not 

 ackersprit are so fine and so abundant that we still 

 have a crop decidedly above the average both as 

 regards quantity and quality. 



October &h, 1S6S. Robert Holland. 



VULGAR NAMES. 



HAVING plucked a little blue flower in a garden 

 in Wiltshire, I was incautious enough to ask 

 the proprietor, au owner of many " water-meadows," 

 to tell me the name of " this pretty and fragrant 

 leguminous plant." 



With a smile of compassion at the ignorance of 

 his London guest, my friend informed me that it 

 was " only a bit of old sow." 



I thanked him : I felt decidedly humiliated — and 

 not much wiser than before. Why should this plant 

 be called " old sow " ? and what knowledge of its 

 nature aud properties is communicated by such a 

 name? and, above all, why should this agrarian 

 philosopher look upon me with contempt because I 

 am ignorant of what most probably constitutes his 

 whole knowledge of it — its vulgar name ? 



This unpleasant incident caused me to inquire a 

 little into the subject of vulgar versus scientific 

 names. 



The methodical names which are scientifically 

 given to natural objects, and which generally ex- 

 press, to those who understand them, some indica- 

 tion of the quality and position .in nature of the 

 things in question, have been treated with outspoken 

 contempt by several of our most admired novel- 

 writers. One, in particular, has been very severe 

 on this subject ; and although it may appear an 

 ungrateful task to repay the delight afforded by his 



charming and original novels by finding out some- 

 thing to be condemned, where all else is so much to 

 be admired, yet it should not be forgotten that the 

 influence of so fascinating a writer must be widely 

 extended, and that the " worship of truth " is 

 even more sacred than the " worship of genius." 



In one of Mr. Charles Reade's tales we find the 

 following exclamation : — " Would I could show 

 this sight to all the pedants of science who spend 

 their useless fives in studying the limbs of the 

 Crustaceonidunculse ! " and a few pages further on, 

 " A fact no mortal man will believe whose habit it 

 is to chatter blindfold about man, and investigate 

 the Crustaceonidunculse." 



In another novel the writer says that " snobs in 

 fustian jackets, without a single polysyllable to their 

 tongues, find all the' gold and all the coal that is 

 found ; and science finds the Crustaceonidunculse ;" 

 aud he also tells us that it is " amusing to be able 

 to classify plants, not by their properties, but by 

 their petals ; and to call everything by its long 

 name, that belongs to twenty other things as well ; 

 instead of knowing each by its own name, as the 

 vulgar unscientific do." 



Mr. Charles Reade appears, in fact, never to be 

 ired of heaping contempt upon natural science and 

 scientific names. 



The thesis sought to be established by writers 

 who indulge in this style of criticism is that 

 scientific men are merely pedantic wiseacres, and 

 that the real naturalists are gamekeepers, gardeners, 

 and fishermen ; the true geologists, stonemasons 

 and working miners. They would assume that only 

 those "practical men" whose lives are passed 

 among natural objects can tell us anything worth 

 knowing about them. 



That this is altogether a mistaken idea can easily 

 be proved by examining some of these experienced 

 persons on the most simple and elementary facts of 

 nature, and it will also become evident with how 

 much caution we should receive even their most 

 positive assertions. 



In illustration of this I will mention a few cases 

 among many which have occurred in my own 

 personal experience. 



I once asked an old gardener who had been col- 

 lecting crops of snails all his life, " what they 

 were." "Why snails, to be sure." "Ah," said 

 I, " but what are snails.'"' "Well, sir," said the 

 man, after some reflection, " they are not animals, 

 nor yet insects ; they are fish, like whelks ; they arc 

 shell-fish sure enough." 



On another occasion I had been listening to 

 several tales about sharks, told very graphically by 

 a captain in the merchant service, who had taken 

 and cut up many of these creatures. These tales 

 referred chiefly to the large collection of valuable 

 property usually found in their insides, such as 

 musical instruments, firearms, and "general fur- 



