Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/214

plants were really matted together by countless numbers, and I could have secured hundreds.

Another species of this genus, Gordius mediensis, common in warm countries, often measuring as many feet as our little friend does in inches, has a nasty habit of entering the flesh of human beings, and if not carefully extracted, and every portion of its body removed, is productive of the most fatal consequences, producing ulcers, gangrene, and death. We are therefore thankful that our British species are harmless.J. James.

I noticed with unusual interest Mr. Baily's remarks on the Hairworm (p. 107).

This recalls a circumstance which had long ago passed from my mind, but which, being recalled, is as vivid in my recollection as if it had but just occurred; that one day, observing one of those long dark-coloured "clocks," or beetles, making its way from the garden to the house, I, with childish aversion, resolved upon its being drowned, and it was shuffled into a basin of pure water for the purpose.

Relentingly watching the creature sink, as it did immediately, to my infinite consternation, there began to protrude from the posterior end of the body a dark hair-like object, which lengthened and lengthened, till it finally emerged a living worm, now apparently in its natural element.

I well remember the almost breathless awe in which I ran to communicate the wonderful thing to my family.

The Hairworm—for such it was, but slenderer than Mr. Baily's figure—was taken to a gentleman who had the credit of being an authority in natural history—a kind of factotum, indeed,—and he, not having that faith which my father had in the veracity of his child, quietly smiled it down as a thing impossible—wholly unworthy of credit! and it was dismissed accordingly. I am naturally pleased, therefore, to see, after the lapse of many years, this long-forgotten first wonder of my youth corroborated; and naturally also regret that they should have for ever passed away to whom it might have afforded equal pleasure.E. Hodgson.

The berries of the hawthorn (Cratægus oxycantha) are in Cheshire not called "haws" but "hægs," pronounced "hagues." This is the old Saxon name of the plant. The same word is in use in Lancashire, as Mr. Grindon tells me that a Lancashire writer, Brierley, speaking of the flowers of the hawthorn, calls them "hague-blossoms," and that the word is also to be found in Shakespeare and in Bacon. The modern German name for hawthorn is "hagedorn." Our word "haw" is of course derived from "hæg," but our Cheshire and Lancashire men retain the original Saxon word. They are also probably more correct in pronouncing it haythorn; than educated people in calling it hawthorn; for haythorn is merely an easy way of pronouncing hæg-thorn.

There are fields in Cheshire called "Hag-hay." Many fields are named after particular plants that are found in them; as Gorsey-patch, Crabtree-lands, and Blue-buttons (the last from the prevalence of Devil's-but Scabious, Scabiosa succisa, called "blue-buttons"); and "hag-hay" may originally have been "hæg-haga," the field where hawthorn grew; for "hay" or "hey," a very common name for a field, is derived from the Saxon "haga," and means an enclosed field. Hag-hay might, however, with equal propriety mean "Goblin-field."

It, however, seems most likely that all fields now called "hays" or "heys," as cow-hey, horse-hey, hag-hey, and such places as Green-heys, in Manchester, were enclosed fields so long ago as the time of the Saxons; and such fields were very possibly called "haga" because the hedges were planted with hægs: indeed, the word "hedge" itself, Saxon "hegge," German "hecke," seems to me to be probably derived from "hæg," because it was made of that plant. If this be correct, a hedge means, par excellence, a hawthorn hedge; and the hawthorn derives additional interest from the fact of its having been used in England for the same purposes as at present for perhaps a thousand years; indeed, it is not impossible, taking into consideration the very slow growth of the plant, that many of the gnarled and twisted hawthorn stumps, cut down and sprouted out again and again, which we see in old-fashioned, crooked, and untidy hedges, especially if the field be called "hay," may be the identical "hæg dorns" planted by our Saxon ancestors.

Haigh and Hague are two not uncommon surnames in Lancashire, and are doubtless derived in some way from the Saxon name of the hawthorn tree.

Mobberley, Knutsford.Robert Holland

Plants Consumers of Oxygen.—From a paper recently read in Paris it would appear that the green leaves of plants absorb carbonic acid and give out oxygen, and the flowers do the reverse. The action of flowers on the atmosphere appears to be very much the same as that of the lungs of animals, and is the more or less intense according to the greater or less vitality of the flowers. Buds give out more carbonic acid for their size than fully developed flowers, and require more oxygen. "Scentless" flowers are less "active" than those with a strong perfume. The stamens and pistils, the most vital parts of the flower, consume most oxygen, and produce most carbonic acid.—The Reader.