Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
that the fern Polytrichum commune , called here Hairmoss, 
or Great Golden Maidenhair, also had the name of Lave- 
rock’s Lint. Laverock, by-the-way, is real old Anglo-Saxon 
for Lark. In Orkney, a quaint name for the Lark is Our 
Lady’s Hen ; somewhere else it was called Heaven’s Hen. 
I saw some Butterflies to-day, White and Red Admiral, 
I think, but I am not learned in Butterflies, though I love 
them. I remember as a child being taught to mount 
Butterflies by drawing the bodies and antennae with a fine 
pen or brush, and then sticking the butterfly’s wings flat on 
the paper. I have heard that, if you want Butterflies in 
abundance, you should cherish Nettles — or rather, since they 
need no encouragement, leave them undisturbed — so many 
species feed on them, especially Vanessa urticaria. They 
are certainly fond of Giant Sunflowers ; some one told me 
they saw a Sunflower Disk quite covered with Red 
Admirals. But not here ; on the West Coast, which to us 
dwellers on the East Coast is the Land of Envy, for the 
mildness which coaxes forth the flowers and allows Fuchsias 
to grow into trees and palms and gum-trees to grow out of 
doors. Sunflowers do not seem to be a generally popular 
flower or to grow very freely here, not as they do in East 
Anglia, where none of the little gardens round the thatched 
cottages ever seem to be without a row of splendid Sun- 
flowers. The Sunflower is sometimes called St. Barthelemy’s 
Star, I suppose because it flowers about his day. 
There is a story of an ancient Border dame whose ideal 
of ornamental gardening was to fill the parterre in front of 
her great mansion with a regiment of Sunflowers. This 
fancy earned her the local character of a great gardener ! 
James Montgomery, whose poems are now, I think, 
unduly neglected, has written very pretty verse in praise of 
the Sunflower, but it is not a flower taken much notice of 
by poets in general apparently. Yet I have always liked 
Sunflowers ever since I read Mrs. Ewing’s pretty little 
child’s story of the Rushlights and the Sunflowers. 
There is a Chaffinch’s nest with several eggs in it 
hidden in the Rhododendrons near the Thrush’s nest. 
170 
