48 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



snake's head, and many others. On these I need say 

 nothing; but the Latin name Fritillaria meleagris 

 deserves a short note. The flower was sent to Clusius, 

 towards the end of the sixteenth century, by Noel 

 Caperon, an apothecary of Orleans, who at the same 

 time suggested that it should be called fritillaria, from 

 fritillus, which he supposed to be a chessboard, instead 

 of the dice-box often used with such a board. Clusius 

 and others, who were better acquainted with Latin, 

 pointed out the mistake, and some suggested Caperonia, 

 and others (as Laurembergius) suggested Gaviana, from 

 gavia, a sea-gull ; but Fritillaria held its ground, not 

 only as the scientific name, but also as the common 

 name, though Parkinson and others tried to establish 

 the pretty name of chequered daffodil, but in vain. 

 The other name Meleayris it gets from its likeness 

 to a guinea-hen, and this name it has had for more 

 than three centuries. It is a plant that spreads from 

 Norway through the whole of Central Europe to the 

 Caucasus and Bosnia, and is now admitted into the 

 English flora, but is a doubtful native. It is, how- 

 ever, found sparingly in many parts of England south 

 of the Trent, and may be said to be abundant in the 

 meadows bordering the Thames, from its rise to below 

 Oxford, and in many meadows it is so abundant as 

 fully to justify Matthew Arnold's description : 



