tion. I now publish it as an Appendix to
the "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," with very few alterations from its
original form, preferring thus to reprint it _in extenso_ than to make
an abstract of it for the illustration of Shakespeare's Daisies.

THE DAISY.

I almost feel that I ought to apologize to the Field Club for asking
them to listen to a paper on so small a subject as the Daisy. But,
indeed, I have selected that subject because I think it is one
especially suited to a Naturalists' Field Club. The members of such a
club, as I think, should take notice of everything. Nothing should be
beneath their notice. It should be their province to note a multitude of
little facts unnoticed by others; they should be "minute philosophers,"
and they might almost take as their motto the wise words which Milton
put into the mouth of Adam, after he had been instructed to "be lowlie
wise" (especially in the study of the endless wonders of sea, and earth,
and sky that surrounded him)--

"To know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom."--_Paradise Lost_, viii. (192).

I do not apologize for the lowness and humbleness of my subject, but,
with "no delay of preface" (Milton), I take you at once to it. In
speaking of the Daisy, I mean to confine myself to the Daisy, commonly
so-called, merely reminding you that there are also the Great or Ox-eye,
or Moon Daisy (_Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_), the Michaelmas Daisy
(_Aster_), and the Blue Daisy of the South of Europe (_Globularia_).
The name has been also given to a few other plants, but none of them are
true Daisies.

I begin with its name. Of this there can be little doubt; it is the
"Day's-eye," the bright little eye that only opens by day, and goes to
sleep at night. This, whether the true derivation or not, is no modern
fancy. It is, at least, as old as Chaucer, and probably much older. Here
are Chaucer's well-known words--

"Men by reason well it calle may
The Daisie, or else the Eye of Day,
The Empresse and the flowre of flowres all."

And Ben Jonson boldly spoke of them as "bright Daye's-eyes."

There is, however, another derivation. Dr. Prior says: "Skinner derives
it from dais or canopy, and Gavin Douglas seems to have understood it in
the sense of a small canopy in the line:

"The Daisie did unbraid her crounall small.

"Had we not the A.-S. daeges-eage, we could hardly ref