THE ASH. 
4S 
by the caterpillars of the Vapourer-moth, whose wingless 
females may be seen like short-legged spiders on the bark, 
whilst the male flutters in an apparently aimless way on wings 
of rich brow'n w'ith central white spots. 
In October the leaves, which have for some time assumed 
a very dull dark-green tint, suddenly turn to orange, then 
fade to pale yellow, and fall in showers. 
The name Elm was derived from the Latin Uhnus, and 
appears to indicate an instrument of punishment — probably 
from its rods having been used to belabour slaves. Prior 
remarks that the word is “ nearly identical in all the Germanic 
and Scandinavian dialects, but does not find its root in any 
of them. It plays through all the vowels . . . but stands 
isolated as a foreign word which they have adopted.” 
This “playing through the vow'els ” may be thus illustrated 
— Aim, JE\m, and Elm (Anglo-Saxon and English) ; lime, 
01m, and Ulme, in various German dialects. 
The Ash {Fraxinns excelsior). 
So commanding, yet at the same time so light and graceful, 
does a well-grown Ash appear, that Gilpin called it the “Venus 
of the Woods.” This may appear to some to be rather too 
close an approach to the “ Lady of the Woods” (Birch), but in 
our opinion it well expresses the characteristics of the two. 
They are both exceedingly graceful, but the beauty of the 
Birch is that of the nymph, whilst that of the Ash is the 
combined grace and strength of the goddess. I have said 
“ a well-grown ” Ash, a phrase by which the timberman would 
understand a tree that had been hemmed in so closely by 
other trees that it has had no chance of developing as a tree, 
but only as a straight stout stick of wood, from eighty to one 
hundred feet long. My well-grown Ash is in a meadow, 
