MR HARDY ON BUTTERCUPS AND DAISIES. 17 



ciety, they are respectively put. As the value of the one will fluctuate 

 with changes in the economy of states, the rate of exchange, and gra- 

 dations of skill in bargain-making, so the other will be used, with more 

 or less variable signification, at different periods, according to the re- 

 volutions they have undergone, or the degree of enlightenment and sense 

 of propriety, possessed by those who employ them. And so great 

 sometimes will the aberration from original signification, produced by 

 these means, have becomei that words in every respect resembling each 

 other, will bo applied to objects, in which the finest ingenuity will 

 scarcely detect any one thing in common. This being the case, we can 

 scarcely expect much precision in the name of an object, so trivial and 

 so unimportant to the necessities of humanity, as a gowan or daisy is 

 usually considered. Indeed, •* buttercups and daisies,'"* 



" Coming ere the springtide 

 Of sunny hours to tell," 



are so naturally associated with each other, that a community of name 

 might take place, without exciting much notice in an unobservant state 

 of society ; and to one who has a taste for rural pleasures, it is almost 

 as great a source of satisfaction, at seeing them placed so ** amicably 

 close,'"* as at beholding them •* marshalled into bands, under distinct 

 names or ensigns." That, however, the word gowan, thus by two dif- 

 ferent chains of ideas, brought to apply to objects so familiarly con- 

 nected, was considered generic, is obvious from the terms, ewe, white, 

 and yellow, being found necessary to be annexed, to obviate the con- 

 fusion that would result from things inherently so distinct, bearing 

 the same appellation. This is evident in the following passage : ** We 

 saw the pleasantest mixture of gowans, so commonly called, or daisies 

 white and yellow, on every side of the way, growing very thick, and 

 covering a considerable piece of the ground, that we ever had occasion 

 to see."* 



Under the family of white gowans or gowlons, there are, as with 

 those that still answer to the primitive meaning of the word, several 

 species. The horse gowan, the Berwickshire name for Pyrcthrum in- 

 odorum, Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum^ and Anthemis arvcnsisy in 

 other parts of Scotland united as the white gowan, and in north North- 

 umberland as the white gowlon ; and the Bellis pcrcnnis, the gowan of 

 the Scotch, and the gowlon of Derbyshire, if not of other parts of Eng- 

 land. The latter plant, under this term, stands at the hea<l of its class, 



* Brand's Orkney, p. 31, apxtd Dr Jamieson. 



B. N. C. VOL. II. NO. X. B 



