198 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Sept. 1, 1865. 



plants were really matted together by countless 

 numbers, and I could have secured hundreds. 



Another species of this genus, Gorducs mediensis, 

 common in warm countries, often measuring as 

 many feet as our little friend does inches, has a 

 nasty habit of entermg the flesh of human beings, 

 and if not carefully extracted, and every portion 

 of its body removed, is productive of the most 

 fatal consequences, producing ulcers, gangrene, and 

 death. We are therefore thankful that our British 

 species are harmless. J. James. 



I NOTICED with unusual interest Mr. Baily's 

 remarks on the Hairworm (p. 107). 



This recalls a circumstance which had long ago 

 passed from my mind, but which, being recalled, is 

 as vivid in my recollection as if it had but just 

 occurred ; that one day, observing one of those long 

 dark-coloured " clocks," or beetles, making its way 

 from the garden to the house, I, with childish aver- 

 sion, resolved upon its being drowned, and it was 

 shuffled into a basin of pure water for the purpose. 



Relentingly watching the creature sink, as it did 

 immediately, to my infinite consternation, there 

 began to protrude from the posterior end of the 

 body a dark hair-like object, which lengthened and 

 lengthened, till it finally emerged a living worm, 

 now apparently in its natural element. 



I well remember the almost breathless awe in 

 which I ran to communicate the wonderful thing to 

 my family. 



The Hairworm— for such it was, but slenderer 

 than Mr. Baily's figure — was taken to a gentleman 

 who had the credit of being an authority in natural 

 history — a kind of factotum, indeed, — and he, not 

 having that faith Which my father had in the veracity 

 of his child, quietly smiled it down as a thing 

 impossible — wholly unworthy of credit ! and it was 

 dismissed accordingly. I am natui'ally pleased, 

 therefore, to see, after the lapse of many years, this 

 long-forgotten first wonder of my j'outh corro- 

 borated ; and naturally also regret that they should 

 have tor ever passed away to whom it might have 

 afforded equal pleasure. E. Hodgson. 



NOTES ON THE HAWTHORN. 



THE berries of the hawthorn {Crataegus oxycan- 

 tlia) are in Cheshire not called " haws " but 

 "hsegs," pronounced "hagues." This is the old 

 Saxon name of the plant. The same word is in 

 use in Lancashire, as Mr. Grindon tells me that a 

 Lancashire writer, Brierley, speaking of the flowers 

 of the hawthorn, calls them " hague-blossoms," 

 and that the word is also to be found in Shakespere 

 and in Bacon. The modern German name for haw- 

 thorn is "hagedorn." Our word "haw" is of 



course derived from " hseg," but our Cheshire and 

 Lancashire men retain the original Saxon word. 

 They are also probably more correct in pronouncing 

 it hayi\\on\ ; than educated people in calling it 

 IiaiDi'kon\ ; for haythoru is merely an easy way of 

 pronouncing hajg-thorn. 



There are fields in Cheshire called "Hag-hay." 

 Many fields are named after particular plants that 

 are found in them ; as Gorsey-patch, Crabtree- 

 lands, and Blue-buttons (the last from the prevalence 

 of Devil's-bit Scabious, Scabiosa succisa, called "blue- 

 buttons"); and " hag-hay" may originally have 

 been " hajg-haga," the field where hawthorn grew ; 

 for "hay" or "hey," a very common name for a 

 field, is derived from the Saxon " haga," and means 

 an enclosed field. Hag-hay might, however, with 

 equal propriety mean " Goblin-field." 



It, hov/ever, seems most likely that all fields now 

 called "hays" or "heys," as cow-hey, horse-hey, 

 hag-hay, and such places as Green-heys, in Man- 

 chester, were enclosed fields so long ago as the time 

 of the Saxons ; and such fields were very possibly 

 called "haga" because the hedges were planted 

 with Jicegs : indeed, the word " hedge " itself, Saxon 

 " hegge," German " hecke," seems to me to be pro- 

 bably derived from " hseg," because it was made of 

 that plant. If this be correct, a hedge means, par 

 excellence, a hawthorn hedge ; and the hawthorn 

 derives additional interest from the fact of its 

 having been used in England for the same purposes 

 as at present for perhaps a thousand years ; indeed, 

 it is not impossible, taking into consideration the very 

 slow growth of the plant, that many of the gnarled 

 and twisted hawthorn stumps, cut down and sproiited 

 out again and again, which we see in old-fashioned, 

 crooked, and untidy hedges, especially if the field 

 be called " hay," may be the identical " hseg dorns " 

 planted by our Saxon ancestors. 



Haigh and Hague are two not uncommon sur- 

 names in Lancashire, and are doubtless derived in 

 some way from the Saxon name of the hawthorn tree. 



Mobberley, Ktmtsford. Robert Holland. 



Plants Consumers of Oxygen. — From a paper 

 recently read in Paris it would appear that the green 

 leaves of plants absorb carbonic acid and give out 

 oxygen, and the flowers do the reverse. The action 

 of flowers on the atmosphere appears to be very 

 much the same as that of the lungs of animals, and 

 is the more or less intense according to the greater 

 or less vitality of the flowers. Buds give out more 

 carbonic acid for their size than fully developed 

 flowers, and require more oxygen. " Scentless " 

 flowers are less " active " than those with a strong 

 perfume. The stamens and pistils, the most vital 

 parts of the flower, consume most oxygen, and 

 produce most carbonic acid. — The Reader. 



