“ All in ye Merrie Month of May ” 
blume , or Goose-flower. It is odd the Dutch, Italians and 
Spanish should all call it Margarita , meaning Pearl. Daisy- 
leaves boiled in asses’ milk used to be thought good for 
consumptives. I must get some Hen and Chicken Daisies, 
they are so quaint ; but I think they must be gone out of 
fashion, one never seems to see them anywhere now. 
“ Jackanapes on Horsebacke ” they have also been called, 
which is also an old name for the Cowslip. In Thuringia 
an old cure for toothache used to be, to pluck and eat 
three Daisies after the tooth was taken out ; this secured you 
against future toothache. Here the Red Daisies are 
“ Bachelor’s Button ” ; this name is also given to the double 
white and double yellow Ranunculus, while Parkinson calls 
the Red and White Campions “ Batchelor’s Buttons.” I 
heard a charming legend the other day accounting for the 
presence of flowers on the earth. After Adam and Eve 
had been turned out of the Garden of Eden they had to 
work for their living hardly amid briers and brambles. 
They wept and lamented the lost flowers of Eden, and at 
last the red-winged Angel of Love was permitted to come 
and turn the tears they had shed, which hung on the thorns, 
into flowers of many colours. Waste patches of ground 
full of briers are called the Devil’s Garden, I think, in 
Germany; and long ago there was prevalent a curious 
custom in Scotland of setting aside, by the inhabitants of 
many villages, a plot of land as an offering to the Devil, called 
the Gudeman’s Croft ; it was supposed he would fly away 
with any bold soul who dared 
To rive his croft o’ the birk and brier, 
Or the flowers that flourish there all the year. 
May 31. — The Crab-apple is making the lane lovely now, 
combined with Broom and Whin. It is sometimes called 
“ Scrog-apple ” ; a “scrog” is a stunted bush, and is a very old 
word, I think, of Saxon origin. The German word is 
Hagapfel , or Hedge-apple. I found a Pheasant’s nest in a 
furze tussock the other day with quite a number of eggs in 
it. It seemed so strange she should elect to sit actually on 
163 
