THE NATURALIST IN NIDDERDALU. 363 
name shows how necessary it is to visit a place and see the nature 
of the spot to which a name is given. ‘“‘ Beggar-mote,” though 
correctly derived, has previously been wrongly explained, as 
shown above. ‘‘ Manchester” refers to the same event(?); It. 
manchézza, loss, defect. 
It is interesting to note the collection of Danish names as 
opposed to old Norsk, on the east side of the Nidd near Loft- 
house, which is itself Danish. This probably indicates that the 
settlers there were of a later date than the original Scandinavian 
invaders who settled on the west side. 
Thus far attention has been drawn to the names of physical 
features, but there are one or two more most interesting points 
connected with names of places that should on no account 
be passed over without mention. It has already been shown 
that most of the streams in the upper part of the dale bear 
Anglian names. For the highest eight miles of the dale, or 
as far down as Sten Beck, there is not one Danish name applied 
toastream. “ Buskar Beck,” a tributary of Stean Beck, is, how- 
ever, Dan. busker, bushes, nom. plu. of busk, a bush. 
In the highest eight miles of Nidderdale, above Stean Beck, 
there are forty-two streams, including branch tributaries, of which 
twenty-seven are named. Of these twenty-seven six retain their 
original Anglian names unchanged, as “ Stand Sike,” “ Hagga Sike,” 
“Maddering Sike,” ‘“‘ Mere Dike”; and twenty-one do so with the 
interpolation of the word ‘‘ Gill,” asin “ Skitter Gill Dike,” “ Wising 
Gill Sike,” “ Twisling Gill,” ‘‘Thornit Gill.” “Gill” (O.N. Gil, a 
deep narrow glen with a stream at the bottom), being the name, 
not of the stream, but of the narrow valley which contains it. 
The English, who came from the Low Countries in which rivers 
are the most strongly marked physical lines, were careful to name 
their rivers and streams, the watershed ridges being low, flat, and 
ill-defined; but the Norseman, who dwelt in a land where the 
watershed ridges from the great physical barriers, or lines of 
division, called the included area dalr, a dale, or division (Goth. 
dalei, dale, dailjan, to divide; A.S. del, a division, a dell; 
O.N. deild, a division; Germ. thal, dale,theil, a division; Gr. do), 
making the name of the river subordinate. 
For this reason a dale frequently bears one name and the 
river another, as Scetersdal in Norway, river Otter; Wensley Dale 
in Yorkshire, river Ure; Colsterdale, Yorkshire, river Burn. 
Therefore, when the Norseman found himself in the Yorkshire 
