i68 
NATURE NOTES. 
TO A SWIFT IN CHURCH. 
Out of God’s sky-roofed temple into this, 
His house where men may gather, thou art come. 
To find a prison. Here thy voice is dumb. 
But thy large soul demands the blue abyss. 
For those wide wings beat fruitlessly, and miss 
The lofty circles where earth’s daily hum 
Greets, with its undertone, the frolicsome 
Shrill flutings of th}' fellows, mad with bliss. 
Bird of the swift wing, didst thou come to teach. 
Ere th}r departure for a sunnier shore ? 
Good luck go with thee ! Through the open door 
Regain thy freedom and thy joyous speech. 
We envy thee — but human thought may soar 
Beyond the utmost limit wings can reach. 
August 1894. Richard F. Towndrow. 
“SCUTCH.”* 
CUTCH ” is our Cheshire name for Triticum repcns, and 
for one or two other grasses which have the very ob- 
jectionable habit (speaking from an agricultural point 
of view) of forming creeping underground shoots 
which fill the land, and are extremely difficult to get rid of, and 
thus cause the farmer an infinity of trouble and perplexity, 
expense and loss. 
Triticum repens, which is an object of such dislike to the 
farmer, possesses, however, many points of interest ; one of 
which centres in its English name ; for it is known by the 
name of scutch, or some very similar name, throughout the whole 
length and breadth of the land. In this paper I propose to dis- 
cuss the meaning and derivation of the name “ scutch,” and 
to trace the various changes its root-form has undergone in the 
dialects of different parts of the country. 
The word “ scutch ” has a meaning in the English language. 
It is not one of those ordinary names which have been given to 
plants simply for the purpose of distinguishing them from each 
other. The name represents a peculiar quality or attribute, and 
many of those plants which possess the same attribute are called 
by this or some very similar name. 
We shall have to go back more than a thousand years, to the 
* This paper was written for Nature Notes shortly before the lamented 
death of the author in July, 1893. — Ed. N.N. 
