252 NETHER LOCHABER. 



them, we should say that the New Zealand thistles, so loudly 

 complained of, are of the same species as that in our garden, the 

 Carduus marianus of botanists, or Great Milk Thistle, a biennial 

 common over all Europe, but nowhere so plentiful as in Scotland, 

 whence it is probable that it is so frequently pointed to by poets, 

 painters, and patriots as the Scotch Thistle, though its claims to 

 the high honour of being the actual and real national emblem are 

 somewhat questionable. The tradition in the south and south- 

 west, where the true story, if ever there was a true story in the 

 matter, is most likely to have rooted itself in its perfectest form, 

 is to the effect that, during an invasion of the Norsemen, the 

 Danes advancing against the Scots on a dark night, one of their 

 barefooted scouts, when prowling about the Scottish encampment, 

 chanced to tread on a thistle, the sharp prickles of which piercing 

 his foot, caused him to utter a loud imprecation, which reaching 

 the ears of the Scots, hitherto lying in fancied security, warned 

 them that the enemy was at hand, and enabled them, instantly 

 standing to their arms, to take their foes at such disadvantage that 

 the fierce Norsemen were totally routed and driven to their ships 

 with immense slaughter. The thistle that thus opportunely 

 prevented the Scots being taken unawares is still pointed out, not, 

 however, as being any of the large, formidable, long-stemmed 

 varieties, but the stemless thistle that spreads out its leaves and 

 spikes quite close to the ground, common enough in old pastures 

 and waste grass lands. The stemless thistle is botanically 

 known as the Cnicus acaulis, and lowly and unpretending as it 

 may seem at first sight, there is, we make bold to assert, no 

 species of thistle so well entitled to bear and boast the grand old 

 legend, Nemo me impune lacessit. Its spines are as fine, and quite 

 as tough and piercing withal, as the finest cambric needle ; impos- 

 sible, too, of extraction, once it has fairly penetrated the flesh, 

 except by a surgical operation ; and we have a shrewd suspicion 



