MAY 89 



into separate flocks during the winter. Linnaeus 

 considered that in Sweden the hens migrated south- 

 ward in autumn, leaving the cocks behind them till 

 the following spring; but subsequent observation has 

 not tended to confirm this movement as invariable. 



The mention of groundsel brings to mind the 

 deceptive change which occurred in that word between 

 the eighth and the tenth centuries. Every one who 

 has made acquaintance with the two volumes entitled 

 Saxon Leechdoms, edited for the ' Master of the Rolls ' 

 Series by the Reverend Oswald Cockayne, must be 

 aware of the immense variety of vegetable, mineral, and 

 animal substances prescribed in primitive times for 

 the remedy of human ailments. Some of the animal 

 ingredients recommended are disgusting, and their 

 prescription is sheer quackery; but the early leeches 

 certainly had discovered or acquired knowledge of the 

 virtues of certain herbs, which retain their place in the 

 Pharmacopeia to this day. Groundsel is one of those 

 which have dropped out of use. Whether it has any 

 medicinal properties or not, I neither know nor care ; 

 I am concerned just now only with the history of the 

 name. In the Saxon work above referred to it is 

 called grunde-swilege, which was understood to mean, 

 not inappropriately, ' ground-swallower.' It was pre- 

 scribed for use in decoction for reducing inflammation, 

 especially of the eyes, and absorbing purulent dis- 

 charges. When the name came under inexorable 

 analysis by the late Professor Skeat, he pointed out 

 that in Anglo-Saxon the word for ' ground ' was not 

 grundc but grund a monosyllable instead of a dis- 



