THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



161 



charred end, gives it to the infant as its first food ! Bemembering the re- 

 puted qualities of the manna ash, perhaps this mouthful is not a whit more 

 nauseous or deleterious than some of the abominable messes which are still 

 administered by the lower classes in similar circumstances. A now happily 

 obsolete ordeal was formerly inflicted upon young children who unfortunately 

 suffered from rupture, The stem of a young ash tree was cleft, and the 

 gaping rift kept open with wedges, the naked infant was then passed through 

 the aperture by the fathei and received by the mother three times. The 

 wedges were then removed, and the yawning chasm, of course, closed, and 

 the trunk was bound up ; if the sides coalesced and the fissure healed up, 

 as it was most likely to do, in like manner the child would be cured ! 



The ash is adopted as the badge of the Clan Menzies. In the language of 

 flowers it is the emblem of " grandeur." Burns, in his song of similes in 

 praise of the maid of Cessnoch Bank, says : — 



" She's stately as yon youthful ash, 



That grows the cowslip braes at ween, 

 And shoots its head aboon each bush." 



Or, as the improved version has it — 



" And drinks the stream with vigour fresh," 



and happily expresses the characters of the ash. A good while ago a con- 

 troversy was carried on in a scientific magazine about the literal accuracy of 

 of the verse in " In Memoriam 33 : — 



" Now fades the last long streak of snow, 

 Now burgeons every maze of quick, 

 About the flowering squares, and thick 

 By ashen roots the violets blow." 



The question whether violets have any marked preferenee for the shelter of 

 the roots of ash trees is not very easy to solve, they certainly have been found 

 growing in such situations. But the general consensus of opinion seems to 

 be that the roots of ash are deleterious to surrounding vegetation, although 

 I think not so markedly so as some other trees, such as the beech. 



Fraxinus is the old Latin name for the ash, Yirgil says "Fraxinus in 

 sylvis pulcherima," or as it has been translated, the Yenus of the woods. 

 The derivation of the name is obscure ; according to some it comes from the 

 Greek " pkraxis" a separation, as the wood is easily split ; others again from 

 the Greek " pkrasso 33 to hedge around ; and some would trace it to the Latin 

 "frango" I break, this could not refer to the wood, whose toughness is pro- 

 verbial, but might have an allusion to the disintegrating effect of its roots 

 when growing on cliffs or old walls and ruins, a favourite habitat — and while 

 it lends beauty and adornment to the crumbling pile, it aids in its decay. 



