CONTENTS 



traps which catch small fry — Hairs and their uses — Plants used 

 as fly-papers — Butterwort v. midges — Its use as rennet — Sun- 

 dew and its sensitive tentacles — Pinning- down an insect — Suffo- 

 cating and chloroforming the sundew — Venus' fly-trap which 

 acts like a rat-trap — Have plants a nervous system? . . 340 



CHAPTER XXVHI 



MOSSES AND MOORS 



Peat-mosses and their birds — Moorlands — Cotton-grass — Scotch 

 whisky — Growth of peat-moss — A vegetable pump — Low-lying 

 and moorland mosses — Eruptions and floods of peat — Colonizing 

 by heather and Scotch fir — Peat-mogses as museums — Remains 

 of children and troopers — Irish elk — Story of the plants in Den- 

 mark — Rhododendrons and peat — Uses of peat — Reclaiming the 

 mosses near Glasgow . . . ... 353 



CHAPTER XXIX 



NAMES AND SUPERSTITIONS 



Giving names the first amusement — Curious and odd names — A 

 spiteful naturalist — The melancholy Bartzia — Common names — 

 British orchids — Dancing girls and columbines — Susans — Biblical 

 names — Almond, apple, locust — Spikenard — Tares — Effects of 

 darnel — Daffodil — Acanthus leaf — Ghost-disturbing branches — 

 Elder or bour tree — Its powers and medicinal advantage — Dane- 

 wort — Mandrake — How to pull it up — The insane root — Its 

 properties — Plants which make bones pink — The betel nut — 

 Henna — Egyptian and Persian uses — Castor oil — Leeks, onions, 

 and garlic — Ancient use of them . ... 363 



Index . . ... 375 



10 



