STUDIES IN NATURE 



used to do. In old days people spoke of Tom 

 the Tailor, Dick the Cook, Will the Farmer, 

 John the Hunter, and we go on calling ourselves 

 Taylors, Cooks, Farmers, and Hunters, although 

 neither we nor our fathers follow these occupa- 

 tions any longer. Again, Tom may have been 

 John's son, Dick, Will's son, Will, Nell's son, 

 and we get the names of Johnson, Wilson, Nel- 

 son. There would be Tom of the Hill, George 

 of the Heath, Sam from the New Ton, Jack of 

 Huntingdon, Hugh the Fleming. All our sur- 

 names had once their meaning, and can even yet 

 tell us a good deal about the places where our 

 forefathers lived and the trades by which they 

 earned their living. We all of us know that 

 John Gilpin, in the celebrated piece of poetry, 

 was a linen draper ; but which of us can say now 

 what was the profession of his friend the Callen- 

 dar, from whom he borrowed his horse ? Such 

 names as Cartwright, Wheelwright, Chapman, 

 Smith, carry us back to the days when every 

 village had its own maker of carts and wheels, 

 its travelling merchant, or pedlar as we might 

 call him now, and its smiths, blacksmiths, white- 

 smiths, locksmiths. 



If then we were to come into this new 

 country of which we were speaking in the 

 beginning of our chapter, we should know some- 

 thing about it when we had found out the names. 

 We might begin by getting a map of the district 

 and looking over it carefully, and then, when we 



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