he noise of their piping, and the jangling of their _Canterburie bells_,
etc., they make more noise than if the king came there away."

Dutch mice is a name for _Lathyrus tuberosus_. Gerard says that the
plant is so named from the "similitude or likeness of Domesticall Mise,
which the blacke, rounde, and long nuts, with a peece of the slender
string hanging out behind do represent." From this description one would
expect to see mouse-like pods, but it is the tubers which give the name
to the plant. This is clearly visible in Bentham's illustration; {114} I
hope the artist was unaware of the name when he made the drawing--but I
have my doubts. The specimen from Cambridgeshire (which I owe to the
kindness of Mr Shrubbs of the University Herbarium) are not especially
mouse-like.

The names shepherd's needle and Venus' comb have been given to an
umbelliferous plant, _Scandix Pecten_. The teeth of the comb are
represented by what are practically seeds. These are elongated
stick-like objects covered with minute prickles all pointing upwards. I
do not know how the seeds germinate under ordinary conditions, but I
learn from Mr Shrubbs that they are dragged into the holes of earthworms,
as my father describes in the case of sticks and leaf-stalks.
Unfortunately for the worms, the prickles on Venus' needles do not allow
the creatures to free themselves, and they actually die in considerable
numbers with the needles fixed in their gullets.

SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER {115a}

"Few, if indeed any, have ever known plants as he did."

--BOWER.

Joseph Dalton Hooker was born in 1817 and died in 1911; and of these
ninety-four years eighty-one included botanical work, for at thirteen
"Joseph" was "becoming a zealous botanist"; and Mr L. Huxley records
(ii., 480) that he kept at work till a little before his death on 10th
December 1911, and that although his physical strength began to fail in
August, yet "till the end he was keenly interested in current topics and
the latest contribution to natural science." So far as actual research
is concerned, it is remarkable that he should have continued to work at
the Balsams--a very difficult class of plants--at least till 1910. Mr
Huxley has wisely determined to make his book of a reasonable size, and
the task of compressing his gigantic mass of material into two volumes
must have been a difficult one. He h