A04 Dr George Johnston on the 
by the twisted heads of the field scabious, is surely a novel, 
as well as a local horologue of the school-boy. Mention is 
likewise made of his noisy habits, in making whistles of the 
willow and plane tree, pipes of the green blades of corn, pop- 
uns of the elder, and squirts of the hogweed ; of his crack- 
ing the broad leaves of the lime and the plane, the bells of 
the fox-glove, and the fresh flowering heads of the white 
cockle, Then there is notice of his mischievous pranks with 
the heads of the burr-dock, bleeding the green-horn’s tongue 
with the goose-grass, and filling his mouth with the florets of 
the woolly-ear grass, rudely stripped off between his teeth 
and lips. 
It would appear from many passages, that our author 
possesses a practical experience of all the amusements of the 
border youth, a vivid recollection of expeditions to gather dan- 
delions and sowthistles for the pet rabbits, and how he pelted 
his companions with burrs. We shall allow him to tell his 
own tale in connection with the lycoperdons, or puff-balls :— 
“« Aye, those were happy days; but the game was not one that 
could be played except in out-of-the-way places amidst our hills, 
where I spent my early years. And often have Iattempted to blind 
my fellows thus; and ever in vain ;—yet it is pleasant now, when 
years have whitened the hair, and ripened the body to what. must 
soon be harvest, to recal those simple acts of the bygone time. It 
is a ‘ Pleasure of Memory.’ Iam almost afraid to think that no 
such frolics may be enacted now,—perhaps no such names are now 
familiar. Boys have grown big and wise with the age, and are men 
from the beginning. This may be development: I am suspicious 
whether in the right direction. But right or wrong, I, at all events, 
wish them to have such blythesome games as ours were when we 
went gathering Fussba’s, that we might puff the light dust into the 
faces of those we then liked best, and may never forget !” 
These incidents vividly reeal to memory our own school- 
boy days. The seeds of the elm, beech-nuts, and the young 
leaves of the same tree, the underground stems of the rest- 
harrow (Ononis arvensis), might be aded to the above list of 
delicacies. When a wasp’s nest was to be destroyed, or an 
humble bee’s nest was to be robbed of its honey, the willow- 
herb, the black knapweed, and ragweed, supplied our wea- 
pons both of offence and of defence; and we had a strange 
