90 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [March 



aperture is not the mouth, but the homologue of (he ambulacral 

 orifice of the Cystidea and Palaeozoic crinoids. 



2. That in the summit of the genus Niideocrinus, there are 

 sixteen apertures — ten respiratory, five ambulacral, and one which 

 is both mouth and vent. There is no aperture in the centre of 

 the summit. 



3. That Cadaster does not belong to the Blastoidea. e. b. 



BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY. 



English Plant Names. — That most troublesome weed to 

 farmers, the Couch-grass (Triticum repms), has a variety of 

 names. In Cumberland and Essex it is Twitch; in Cheshire 

 and Shropshire, Scutch; in North Buckinghamshire, Squitch ; in 

 South Buckinghamshire, Couch, or Cooch-grass ; all evidently 

 having the same derivation, but an obscure one. In the Norfolk 

 *' Quicks," and Warwickshire " Quicken-grass " we have a clue. 

 No plant is so retentive of vitality as this Triticum repens ; the 

 smallest piece left in the ground will grow. All these names are 

 but forms of the A-S cwic, living, a word with which we are 

 familiar as occurring in the Apostles' Creed in the English 

 Prayer-book, where " the quick " are referred to in opposition to 

 " the dead." The words "quicks'' and "quickset" are applied 

 to living hawthorn hedges as distinguished from dead-wood fences ; 

 cwic-heam, the living tree, was, according to Dr. Prior, the A.-S. 

 for the Aspen (^Fopulus tremida), on account of its ever-moving 

 leaves; and Quick- in-hand was an old name for the Touch-me-not 

 (^Impatiens Noli-me-tangere), from the suddennes with which its 

 seeds discharge themselves when handled. 



Many north-country names are derived from Swedish and 

 Danish sources. The black heads of the Ribwort Plantain 

 (FhUago lanceolata) are, in the northern countries, called kemps- 

 We find the origin of this in the Danish kcempe, A.-S. cempa, a 

 warrior. Children often play with the flower-stalks, each endea- 

 vouring to knock the head off the other's mimic weapon ; and this 

 game is still known in Sweden,, where the stalks are called kam 

 par (h'rior). The same game is very popular with the Cheshire 

 children, who term it " playing at conquerors;" the heads them- 

 selves they call " fighting cocks." Rushes (Jimcl) are called sivs 



