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NATURE NOTES. 
Vern 
*Black-spem 
Bird’s-eye 
Weather-glass ... 
Cuckoo-flower ... 
Bracken 
Black Spleenwort 
The larger Veronicas 
A nagallis arvensis 
Cardamine pratensis 
The following are the bird, mammal and fish names 
*Blood lark 
*Wet-your-neck 
^Fork-tail 
* Brown dove 
Furze-chucker ... 
Bunt or *Bent lark 
"Mudlark 
Scutty ... 
Flutter-mouse ... 
Seven-sleeper 1 
Sleep-mouse J 
Nine-eyes 
\ 
? 
? 
Swallow 
p 
Win-chat 
? 
Skylark 
Wren 
Bat 
Dormouse 
Leach 
Lampern 
Centipede 
Stone-rocker 
Cheebby-head J 
Quid-worm 
With regard to “ larks,” the Mudlark is the Skylark, so 
called from its nest being lined with mud. The “ Blood-lark” is 
a puzzle. The boys say : “ He builds a nest on the ground, he 
do, and lays eggs most like a Yellow-hammer.” Is it a Meadow- 
pipit ? The “ Wet-your-neck ” is so called because before wet 
weather it cries, “ Wet your neck ! Wet your neck ! ” Can any 
reader say what bird it is ? Can it be a Wood-pecker, which in 
many parts of England is known as the Wet-bird or Wet-fowl ? 
A Wren’s nest, as well as the bird itself, is known as a “scutty.” 
I once asked a school boy, who is fond of natural history and 
knows a good deal about the common animals and birds, why 
a Quid-worm was so named. He looked much astonished, and 
said : “ Why, because they gives he to cows as can’t chew the 
quid ; they puts he down their throats.” 
[This interesting communication contains several names, indicated by a pre- 
fixed asterisk, which do not appear in our most complete catalogues of popular 
nomenclature — the Rev. C. Swainson’s “ Folk-lore and Provincial Names of 
British Birds,” and Messrs. Britten and Holland’s “ Dictionary of English Plant- 
names,” two works which we have adopted as our standard of reference. 
“Bunt Lark” is applied in Norfolk to the Corn Bunting. The Wren is 
called “ Scutty ” in Sussex, and “Cutty” or “Cut” in several counties, from 
Welsh nut, a short tail. The Quail is called “Weet my feet”(E. Lothian, N. 
Ireland), and “ Wet my lip ” (W. Norfolk), but some other bird is no doubt in- 
tended in the above list. 
“ Quidworm ” is an interesting name. “ Quid ” is a form of “ cud,” and the 
Cudweed was also called “ Quidwort ” two hundred years ago from its somewhat 
similar use. “ They bruise [it] small, and put a quantity of fat thereunto, and 
so convey it ’nto the beast’s mouth to swallow, that hath lost his quide, and so 
he will amend.” — (Mascal, Government of Cattel, 1662, pp. 40, 242 .) — Eds.] 
