HEDGE AND DITCH 175 



produced under favourable circumstances can be expected 

 to survive, still one per cent, of a million will be a thousand 

 times as great as one per cent, of a thousand. But we 

 are mere beginners, learning to spell, and what we think 

 about the more difficult questions of life signifies little 

 until we are in possession of wider and deeper knowledge. 

 Let us concentrate our attention upon the problems which 

 are soluble in our own day, not dismissing altogether 

 from our thoughts such as are at present insoluble, but 

 waiting for the lucky moment when the clue shall offer 

 itself. Some day we may be able to explain why an egg 

 which has to remain long dormant must be fertilised, 

 while an egg which is to develop at once may dispense 

 with fertilisation. 



HINTS FOR THE ANSWERING OF QUESTIONS ON 

 " HEDGE AND DITCH." 



(1) We now speak of the haw as the fruit of the haw- 

 thorn, but in old time haw meant a hedge or inclosure. 

 Skeat quotes from the Canterbury Tales, " And eke there 

 was a polkat (polecat) in his hawe (yard)." Hedge and 

 hey are other forms of the same word, which becomes 

 Hecke in German, and Hage in Dutch, whence the familiar 

 place-name, Hague. Hawthorn (German Hagedorri) origin- 

 ally meant the thorn of which men made hedges. White- 

 thorn is a name given to the hawthorn because of its white 

 flowers ; very illogically we have given the name of black- 

 thorn to the sloe (which is white-flowered too) because it 

 has a black fruit. 



(2) Sycamore-maple. Leaves toothed, flower-bunches 

 hanging, halves of the fruit inclined at right angles to 

 one another, bark smooth. Hedge-maple. Leaves with 

 entire margin, flower-bunches erect, halves of the fruit 

 in a straight line, bark fissured. 



(3) A bryony-stem has several sharp ridges, which 

 become spiral by the twist of the stem ; they have prob- 

 ably some effect in preventing slipping. Every skater knows 



