188 WILD FLOWERS. 



one party affirming it to be the Galluna, and another 

 either the E. tetralix, or the E. cinerea. Lightfoot, 

 who paid great attention to native names, calls both 

 the Cinerea and the E.vulgaris (Galluna) "bather/* 

 and of both, says Sir W. J. Hooker, " the Gaelic 

 name is traocti" while to the same high authority I 

 am indebted for the information, that after living 

 and botanising in Scotland for upwards of twenty 

 years, he had always understood "heather" " to be 

 a generic rather than a specific name, identical with 

 our English word heath/' 



Accustomed, as we are, in more southern coun- 

 ties, to see the heath creeping as a low shrub over 

 the surface of the earth, or, at most, only rising into 

 tufts of a foot or two in height, we are surprised 

 when the " minstrel of the north " celebrates the 



" Heather black, that waved so high 

 It held the copse in rivalry." 



Yet so it is ; and not unfrequently a man may 

 stand upright, and yet be invisible, behind a screen 

 of heather ! 



Dr. G. Johnston has collected together, in his 

 " Botany of the Eastern Borders/' several facts re- 

 lative to the legal enactments by which, in former 

 ages, the "muir- burning/' or heather-burning, was 

 regulated. Thus, the Scotch parliament of Robert 

 III., in the year 1401, passed a statute "to be ob- 

 served through the whole land/' that there should 

 be no "muir-burning," except in the month of March, 

 under a penalty of forty shillings, which sum was 

 to be paid over to the lord of the land on which 



