»" 
389 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
statutes, any person wantonly injuring or destroying an oak tree was muleted | 
ina fine varying according to its size, or the quantity of mast it produced.’ : N 
Akvaos, which occurs in er, Odyss. x, 242, as the name of the acorn, is | 
said by Plato to have becn adopted from northern nations, and Grimm and. 
Adelung consider it to be identical with the G. eichel ; but as the initial à is 
short, it would seem rather to be the L. oculus, an eye, although certainly 
oculus is not found used in a metaphorical sense for an acorn. 
aris olius Quercus, L? 
“Rye, the pink, un cillet, in Tusser called * Indian in hee the eye- 
shaped marking of the corolla. nthus, L. 
i“ Eye, a word shat wilh allowance for dialect, is widely Pee dicssa the 
whole. group of Ind-European languages, Anglo-Sax. eage and @g, Fries. åger, 
Germ. auge, Low Germ, oog, Da. je, Sw. öga, Old Norse auga, Goth. augé, aud. 
very similar words in the Slavonian dialects, the Lett, and the Old Prussian, 
Lith. ahi, Zend. ashi, Skr. akshi, Gr. óxos and éxxos, and L. oculus, Tt. is 
also the same word as egg, Anglo-Sax.@g,and Gr. &ov, L. ovum, where the v replaces 
the g of the northern oog ; as the first syllable in our misspelt island, Anglo-Sax. 
eg- or ig-land, Germ. eiland; and as the first syllable of acorn, Germ. eichel; 
Du. eekel, Da. aggern. The similarity of the oval form in these objects has. 
led. to the use of the same name for them all. But, further, the egg, having no . 
g or end, has come to be used as a symbol of eternity, and then ce the 
Gr. det, pai Anglo-Sax. eg-, Goth. aiw, and L. ev in ævum ; and possibly, 
from its even boundless surface, the eg in L. equor phe equus. A bird's egg 
was the first meaning of the word, and this, by a metaphor was applied to the 
eye, and from the eye extended to an eye-land, from the latter standing in the, 
sea, like the eye in the face, as remarked by Spelman, p. 194: ‘ Est autem 
Eage proprie oculus et ovum, nomenque. hine contraxit insula, quod instar. 
oculi vel ovi se in mari ex hibet.' See OAK 
From these extracts, a fair idea may be formed of our author's T ə 
of treating his subject, and they will suffice to show how thoroughly he 
has investigated it. We could have wished, indeed, that he had»some-" 
times devoted a little more space to the examination of conflicting 
opinions on controyerted points, and that he had noted, under each. of 
the older names, the earliest. work, printed or. manuscript, in which its... 
use could be traced. This would probably have involved little addi- 
tional labour on his part, and would have supplied a chronological want 
which those who take an interest in the names of our native plants 
must have often felt, In discharge of our critical duty, we must also 
not omit to notice a slip of the pen, under “ Timothy-grass,’ ' which is 
stated to have been so named. “ from having been brought from New 
York by Mr. Timothy Hanson, and SUM SL by him into. Carolina, . d 
and thence into England." We presume that this statement was dn- 
COBTT UU NETT Eme 
