family, and is compared by old writers to the peacock, and also to the guinea-fowl (Numida meleagris of ornithologists). Indeed, there was great confusion when the turkey first arrived between it and the guinea-fowl, and it appears to be owing to this mixing up of the two birds that the American bird was called a turkey-cock, since the guinea-fowl is an African bird, and came into the hands of Europeans through Mussulman traders or "Turks." So far did the confusion go that the great Linnæus applied the Latin name Meleagris, which was that of the guinea-fowl, to the " turkey" of America! Some people think that the turkey-cock established his misleading name by his cry, which they say is represented by the words "Turk-turk-turk." Probably the turkeycock, though an American bird, was imported by traders who were called "Turkey merchants" because their chief business was with the Levantine and Morocco ports. Another mistake or vagueness as to the native home of the turkey was hit upon by the French, who called it the Poule d'Inde, whence their modern name for it, Dindon; and the same error is found in an old German name for it, Kalkuttisch Hün (from Calicut, on the Malabar coast of India, where the turkey was introduced from America in the seventeenth century, and has flourished ever since). The Swedish name for the turkey is Kalcon, and is only a modification of this old German name. Probably few animals or birds have been so persistently misrepresented by the names given to them as the American bird which we call the turkey.

Our farmyard names for him are far better. In Scotland they call him the "Bubbly-jock," which vividly suggests his airs and graces, whilst in Suffolk we call him a "Gobble-cock." I know an old farmhouse near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, which bears the delightful name of "Gobblecock Hall." "The squire of Gobblecock

Hall" would have furnished Randolph Caldecott with inspiration for a Christmas picture story; and so, indeed, would the country round the "Hall," with its vast sandy tract, ten miles long, known as Hollesley Heath, ending on the seashore near Orford Castle.

The misleading indication as to the native land of an animal-due to the name commonly applied to it—is remarkable in the case of the guinea-pig. Though the guinea-fowl is correctly so called, since it comes from the Guinea Coast of Africa, the guinea-pig has nothing to do with that coast, but comes from South America! It is not a pig, but a rodent, and it does not come from Guinea. It appears that the ships of the "Guinea merchants" of this country established trading relations with South American ports, and hence the little "pig (Shakespeare calls the hedgehog "hedge-pig") which they brought home was called a "guinea-pig," just as the big "cock" imported by Turkey merchants was called a "Turkey-cock." The guinea-pig suffers other "indignities of appellation." The Germans call him Meerschweinchen, that is, "little sea-pig." Apparently sea" pig, because he was brought over the sea. But this leads to unjustifiable suggestions as to the guineapig's character. For the Germans call the porpoise Meerschwein, which would seem to mean "pig of the sea"; and those imperfectly acquainted with the German language have been known to take allusions made by German writers to the former animal as intended to apply to the young of the latter. Thus one reads in an English medical book of a number of "young porpoises being fed upon carrots when it was really "guinea-pigs which consumed this nutriment. The German physiologists, who often make use of guinea-pigs in their investigations, now call them Cobayas, so as to avoid any further misunderstanding. The French word for a

porpoise, marsouin, is a corruption of the German name Meerschwein.

I have pointed out above the origin of heavy feeding at Christmas. Whether it is necessary or not to continue that precise mode of celebration, the sentiments of peace and goodwill which belong to Christmas, the meeting of kinsmen, and, above all, the dedication of many of its customs to children,—are things to be cherished and treated tenderly. The 25th day of December was fixed by the Church for the celebration of the birth of Christ, but it is fairly certain that the period of the year indicated in the Gospel as that when the shepherds were watching their flocks and saw the star of Bethlehem, was not December, but October. It is also certain that the children owe their share in Christmas to the combination with it of customs proper to the Epiphany, which celebrates the bringing of gifts to the child Christ by the wise men of the East. It appears that the greatest and gayest of the feasts of pagan Rome-the "Saturnalia" -was held at the end of December, and that the early Church in this, as in many other cases, adapted a pagan custom to its own uses, and fixed the feast of the Nativity at this date expressly in order to take over, as it were, the gaiety of the Saturnalia. The brilliant foliage and berries of the holly-tree were used for decorations at the Saturnalia, and thus became a Christmas emblem. The fun and frolic of the Saturnalia were transferred to the name of Christmas, and thus it comes about that the Yule Log and the Lord of Misrule and the Abbot of Unreason, and also snapdragon and clown, harlequin and columbine, are found in full swing at Christmas-tide. Later St. Nicholas, who took the place of Neptune, and was the patron saint of sailors, became associated with Christmas celebrations as Santa Claus or Father Christmas. His regular day was at the beginning

of December, and so it was easy to postpone his festivities to three weeks later.

Mistletoe is not a Christmas decoration. It comes to us from the Druids, and belongs to the New Year. It is not allowed to appear in church, and should not be hung up in private houses till Christmas is over and the New Year has come. The hanging up of the mistletoe is in itself a beautiful survival of an ancient worship, and should be associated in our minds with Stonehenge and the prehistoric star temples, whose priests were astronomers. On New Year's Day they solemnly distributed branches of the mistletoe to the people as a charm ensuring fertility. In December there are many hundredweight of mistletoe cut down and despatched from the ancient Druidical haunts of the Welsh border, and from over-sea Brittany, to all-devouring London, where it is heedlessly nailed up in doorways, and made the excuse for much giggling and embracing. May those who read these lines treat it with due reverence, and when they kiss beneath the beautiful strange branch with its white berries, think of our ancestors-the noble youths and lovely maidens of prehistoric days, who kissed three thousand years ago, and sent this living token of their happy lives down the long ages-to us, distracted hustlers of the motor-car. Prehistoric feeding may not be good for us, but the prehistoric rite of the mistletoe must not be neglected in these days of strange political aspirations on the part of those who have not discovered its sedative virtue.

XL

THE ORIGIN OF OPIUM

HAT Europe is the original home of the opium

THA

poppy, and not Asia, is even more contradictory of our settled traditions and belief than the fact that Europeans gave tobacco to the East. Yet it is the fact that opium, like tobacco, came to the Far East from Europe. The opium-poppy does not grow wild in Asia; it is a cultivated variety of a Mediterranean poppy, the Papaver setigerum, which has a pale purple flower, and was conveyed, long ago, by man from the Levant to Asia. We have true poppies of four species which grow wild in England, all with splendid scarlet or crimson petals, easily distinguished from one another by the shape of the seedboxes, or capsules, which they form. If you scratch the surface of the seed capsule of one of these poppies a milky juice appears. It is this which is collected from the capsules of the much larger opium-poppy in India and China, and when dried forms a hard brown cake, which is called "opium." It consists of resinous matter, in which is contained a small quantity of the invaluable narcotic called "morphia," and also small quantities of other powerful poisons.

The pale - purple poppy of the Mediterranean (Papaver setigerum) was cultivated hundreds even thousands of years ago in the South of Europe and