51 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[March 1, 1S70. 



them, making a little note of each specimen. It 

 was one of these jottings, made in June, that I 

 sent you, sir, together with a note of explanation. 

 As that note did not appear, I feel sure you will, 

 with the courtesy you always show the weaker sex, 

 permit this to do so. 



The tree I sat under was the Vlmus campestris 

 of our woodlands, although growing in cultivated 

 soil, and the ground at the time (the first week in 

 June) was covered with ripe fruit ; there were 

 some clusters still on the tree when I wrote the 

 words " foliage and fruit in perfection," which have 

 been taken up so warmly, and I contend that the 

 term was not misapplied : the green leaves af- 

 forded me shade ; so, to say the foliage was in per- 

 fection could not be far wrong ; and to term ripened 

 seed in a stage of "perfection" must surely be 

 right. 



The Elm, I know, is apt to produce suckers, so 

 people graft it on the Wych Elm; and Mr. Holland 

 will pardon my telling him he is mistaken in calling 

 tbis "process" a "troublesome" one. No tree is 

 more easy to graft ; nearly every scion takes. The 

 Wych Elm flowers in May, and the seeds ripen in 

 June. It seeds more freely than the Vlmus cam- 

 pestris, and when stocks are wanted, it is absolutely 

 requisite to sow seed. 



If " Pi. H. A." bad lived as much in the country 

 as I have, he would not look in any book for a 

 record of the " utility " of the Elm. His own eyes 

 would assure him of the fact : axletrees in the vil- 

 lage wheelwright's shop will tell him of it ; chairs 

 and tables at the carpenter's will point 'it out to 

 him'; his garden wheelbarrow aud his farmyard 

 cart are practical evidence, provided he live in a 

 neighbourhood where the wood is come-atable; and, 

 last of all, the bumble coffin carried home'after dusk 

 by sorrowing friends to some wayside cottage is 

 generally made of Elm wood. 



Boat-builders will testify as to its value, and 

 joiners find it acquire a line mahogany colour in 

 their hands by applying some particular acid to it. 



De Yillette made good brown paper from its 

 bark, and Dambourney obtained a fine yellowish- 

 brown dye from the same source. Drs. Lettsom, 

 Lysson, Prout, Willan, and Banau all laud its 

 medicinal virtues. I have seen it used with good 

 effect by the poorer classes in various cases, which, 

 as I am not a member of the profession, or writing- 

 in a medical journal, need not be recorded here. 



"Will " 11. H.A." tell me why the Sambuca should 

 not be identical with the Sackbut ? I will tell him 

 why people fancy it is. The Elder-tree is said to 

 have been used in the construction of the sackbut, 

 and Sambucus, the Latin name for the Elder, comes 

 from Samluca, a musical instrument. 



And now what remains to be explained ? I am, as 

 Mr.Britten opines, aware that the English is the only 

 language in which the Digitalis is called 7'arglove ; 



also that some surmise the proper orthography to 

 be " Folksg\o\a " ; but I believe it came iwrnFuchs- 

 glove, for Eucbs was the first to give it the name of 

 Digitalis, from digitate, the finger of a glove ; and 

 we English may quite as easily have corrupted 

 Fuchsglove into .Foxglove, as Folksglove. The 

 German appellation of Fingerhut (fingerstall) is 

 supposed to have suggested the term Digitalis to 

 Euchs. 



I am indebted to Mr. Britten for bis endeavour 

 to set my mind at rest in regard to the sensibility 

 of plants. I was, 1 must confess it, in a fanciful 

 mood when 1 wrote the words he quotes. Walter 

 S. Landor's lines — 



" It is, and ever was, my wish and way 

 To let all flowers live freely, and all die 

 Whene'er their genius bids their souls depart, 

 Among their kindred in their native place. 

 I never pluck the Rose, the Violet's head 

 Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank, 

 And not reproached me ; the ever sacred cup 

 Of the pure Lily hath, between my hands, 

 Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold," 



were sounding in my ears, and I thought of that 

 dear, good, noble lady, the late Duchess of Suther- 

 land, who never liked cut flowers to decorate her 

 princely rooms. A near relative of mine, who often 

 stayed at both Cliefdcn and Lilleshall, has frequently 

 spoken to me of this sensitiveness on her Grace's 

 part, and repeated her words, " Do not cut them, 



Comtesse H , bright, beautiful things ; let them 



live out their brief existence." A lady, still higher 

 in rank, and more beloved if possible, shares, I 

 hear, in this feeling respecting cut flowers. Will 

 Mr. Britten think less harshly of fanciful people 

 when he finds such good precedents for indulging 

 in poetical conceits ? and if be reads my " Eloral 

 Eindings " over again, be will discover that I never 

 said that I placed any elm in my bouquet ; I simply 

 described the tree under whose protecting branches 

 I sat. Ah, well, I fear bis matter-of-fact Dobin 

 carries him as wide from the mark, sometimes, as 

 my Pegasus does. Helen E. Watney. , 



Upper Norwood, Feb. 4. 



Otter and Badger. — Almost every year one or 

 more of the former are met with in some part of 

 the course of the Avon, and it is not long since a 

 wild-fowl shooter killed one whilst waiting in am- 

 bush for a flock of ducks. This specimen was about 

 half-grown, but on previous occasions I have seen 

 some very large ones which had been captured in 

 this neighbourhood. I have heard of the Otter 

 being occasionally found in the brooks of the forest, 

 but I have never seen a specimen from that locality. 

 The Badger is still a native of the forest, but is, I 

 believe, becoming gradually scarcer. I have a fine 

 old female which was caught in a trap on the border 

 of one of the woods a few years ago. — G. B. C, 

 Ringicood. 



