STATICE. PLANTAGO. 169 



river, is really beautiful : it is as if an evening cloud had settled down 

 upon earth, — Used for edgings in gardens, but a sad harbourer of 

 slugs and beetles. Under its covert some of the finest specimens of 

 Vitrina pellucida may be collected. 



466. S. LiMONiuM. Ann. and Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. iii. 438. — 

 Sea Lavender. — On St. Cuthbert's isle, amidst the ruins of the 

 Chapel. " This small fabric stood upon a low detached portion of 

 the basaltic line of rock which runs in front of the ruins of the Priory 

 Church. The bearing of this islet is south-west of the Priory, and 

 its distance from the main land is not much more than a hundred 

 yards. I know not its precise size, but there appears to be about 

 half an acre covered with grass. The rest is naked stone, and there 

 is one portion of stone in particidar which rears its head to a consi- 

 derable height above high water mark. The island, still bearing the 

 name of St. Cuthbert, is completely insulated at full tide. At low 

 water it is accessible by a ridge of kelpy stone, over which it is no 

 easy matter to pass. Here, before the dissolution of the Priory of 

 Holy Island, but how long before that event I know not, was a small 



chapel dedicated to St. Cuthbert The outline of the chapel is 



easily traced. In fact, its walls are in some places two feet above the 

 ground, and they were much higher in the memory of man. It ap- 

 pears to have been 24 feet long and 13 broad. I could observe no 

 freestone in this little fabric : it is entirely built of the basaltic rock 

 upon which it was raised," Raine. Hist. N. Durham, pp. 145, 146. 



467. Plantago major. 33lanttn : IKawbrttJf : Wi^avlvon: 

 WLnvbovn, or TOapbrct, — that is Waybred, of which the others are 

 vulgar corruptions, and they merely express the wayside habit of the 

 plant, which is the child of road-sides and path-ways *. The Rev. Mr. 

 Talbot mistakes the meaning entirely. He says — " Waybread is an 

 old name for the Plantain, a weed which grows very commonly by 

 road-sides in England. But what has it to do with bread ? It affords 

 no nourishment of any kind. The German name for it is Wegetritt, 

 that is. Way-tread — a good name, because it is constantly trodden 

 under foot, growing, as it does, on the hardest roads. I therefore con- 

 jecture that the word Way -bread, being ill written in the manuscript, 

 was mistaken for Way-tread b)'^ our old herbalists." Etymologies, 

 p. 412. — Another popular writer has fallen into Mr. Talbot's error. 

 " Merrily might the traveller wend on his way when there was the 

 little Speedwell to cheer him, Waybread to support him, Gold-of- 

 pleasure to enrich him. Traveller's-joy to welcome him." See Notes 

 and Queries, vi. p. 503 f. — The seed-bearing spikes, called Coffe)S, 

 are put into cages for the use and pleasure of the favourite bird. The 



* And, on this account, the Swedes name the plant Wagbredblad ; and 

 the Indians of North America Whiteman's-foot, for it springs up near every 

 settlement the colonists make. Johnston. Notes on N. America, i. p. 109, 

 Willdenow states that the plant grows spontaneously in Japan. 



t So also it is a mistake to say, that Plantain is derived from the like- 

 ness of the plant to the sole of the foot, as in Richardson's Dictionary. 

 Rather say because the herb grows under the sole of the foot. 



