u 



Thus Chaucer ; and though other derivations have been given, we 

 all can feel, as we see the " wee flower " opening its brightness to 

 the sun, and closing up at night, that Chaucer's account is, and 

 shall be the right one. 



Let us take another plant as common, but not as pretty as the 

 daisy — the Nettle. Kettle is the same word (etymologically) as 

 needle. (And when 1 speak thus positively, as I shall have to do 

 more than once this evening in giving the origin of names, I hope you 

 will understand that I do so — not speaking on my own authority, 

 but on the authority of learned men, who have well studied the 

 subject). " Nettle," then, is the same as needle, and it takes us back 

 at once to the time when the nettle supplied the chief instrument 

 of sewing — not of course the instrument that holds the thread, to 

 which we now confine the word needle, but the thread itself. 

 And very good linen it is said to make. The poet Campbell says 

 in one of his letters, " I have slept in nettle sheets, and dined oflF 

 a nettle table-cloth. The stalks of the old nettle are as good as 

 flax for making cloth, and I have heard my mother say that she 

 thought nettle-cloth more durable than any other linen." In other 

 points the nettle is a most interesting plant. Microscopists know 

 that it aflbrds beautiful objects for the microscope. Entomologists 

 value it, for they tell us that it is such a favourite resort of butter- 

 flies and other insects, that in Britain alone upwards of 30 insects 

 feed solely on the nettle plant, and it is one of those curious plants 

 which mark the progress of civilization by following man wherever 

 he goes. 



From Nettles it is an easy change to Brambles ; the name is 

 supposed to mean anything thorny, and was applied to any thorny 

 bush, so that Chaucer applies the name to the Dogrose ; it is now 

 applied solely to the blackberry-bearing bramble. But though I 

 can tell yoii so little of the origin of the name, I can tell you 

 more of the origin of the plant, as the legend is pleasantly told by 

 Waterton. 



" The cormorant was once a wool merchant. He entered into 

 partnership with the bramble and the bat, and they freighted a 

 large ship with wool. She was wrecked, and the firm became 

 bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till midnight 



