SPRINGTIDE. 253 



One often sees this moth hovering about the 

 flowers of a gaily coloured wall paper : this looks as 

 if the sense of smell were wanting. You need no 

 microscope to observe that the singularly bright little 

 eye of this insect is a perfect hexagon. My son has 

 often found the tailed green larva on the yellow 

 Beadstraw (Galium). A propos of Galium, I notice 

 that the Rev. W. Tuckwell, in his delightful 

 " Tongues in Trees," supports the spelling " Bedstraw," 

 as if the plant had been used to stuff mattresses. But 

 the form " Beadstraw " is more poetical and quite as 

 likely to be correct. " Bead " (M. H. G. beten) meant 

 " prayer." To tell (M. H. G. zahlen) one's beads was 

 to count one's prayers. Now a pious peasant who 

 had no rosary to hand might find the Galium useful 

 for this purpose. As the stem is passed through the 

 hand, the fingers will be arrested at each node by the 

 whorl of leaves, and a long stalk of Beadstraw 

 would involve a good many Pater Nosters and Ave 

 Marias.* 



The yellow Galium is considered in this district 

 to be a sovereign remedy for diarrhoea. You do 

 not drink it as a tisane, nor eat it as a salad. It 

 is for external application only : you wear it under 

 your feet inside the socks ! The feeling is not 



*A distinguished botanist, to whose authority I willingly defer, 

 assures me that a stalk of Galium could not be used as a rosary. Might 

 it not, however, have obtained its name from its likeness to a rosary ? 

 Thus Scandix pecten resembles a comb, Stellaria a star, Capsella a purse, 

 the replum of Lunaria the moon, and so forth. Many plants were dedi- 

 cated to the Virgin Mary. The Beadstraw may have been one of these. 

 In any case it seems to me that Our Lady's beadstraw and Our Lady's 

 mantle are more poetical and more euphonious plant names than Swine's- 

 cress and Treacle-mustard 



