LESSER RED-RATTLE. 107 



even up to the top, somewhat like to ye floure of the red 

 nettle. The which being falle away there grow in their 

 place little flat powches or huskes wherein the seede is con- 

 tained." Many of these old descriptions, quaint as they 

 are in expression and spelling, go closely home to the root 

 of the matter, and in most cases describe very accurately 

 the details of the various plants. The foregoing is from 

 Lyte's translation of Dodouseus. 



The presence of the red-rattle is ordinarily an indication 

 of defective drainage, but this clearly is no fault of 

 the plant, though it has had to bear a good deal of 

 unmerited abuse in consequence. It is a great pity 

 that a delicate and beautiful plant should be called foul 

 names, but we are bound to add that the name by which 

 it is best known and by which it is called by all the old 

 writers, is " louse-wort/' This libellous epithet arose from a 

 belief that sheep eating it became diseased and covered 

 with parasites ; but when the sheep suffer it is not because 

 of this plant, but because they have been put into marshy 

 and unwholesome pastures. The little rattle is in reality 

 a benefactor, for it indicates where the marshy places are, 

 and marks the spots that need the farmer's attention. The 

 generic title pedicularis refers to its supposititious vermin- 

 producing qualities, and hands the libel down to posterity. 



On taking down our Parkinson, the " Theatrum 

 Botanicum, or the Theater of Plants/' to see what he had 

 said on the subject, the following line in the index was 

 rather startling : " Yellow Rattle and Red Rattle, 713; 

 The Indians' Rattling God, 1666." We naturally lost little 

 time in turning to page 1666, and were so far edified that, 

 though we are afraid the plant cannot claim much kinship 

 with our pedicularis, except in its power of rattling, we are 



