The _Cynodon dactylon_ is, at the present day, very common in Greece, where it is specially partial to low grounds, which are somewhat damp and sandy. The inhabitants call it _Agriada_, a name derived from ἄγριος, "wild." But if we may believe Fraas, the author of a _Flora Classica_, the genuine dog's-tooth, _Triticum repens_, is, on the contrary, very rare in the land of Socrates. This is a curious fact, if a fact, for geographical botany. Throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the eighteenth century, were confounded, under the generic name of _Gramina_, or grasses, the most diversely-featured herbs, including the dog's-tooth. Tabernæmontanus, Dodonné, Mathiole, Jean and Gaspard Bauhin, were the first to attempt the clearing of a path through this intricate wilderness. They eulogised, at the same time, the emollient properties of the dog's-tooth. Tournefort[37] and Bernard de Jussieu, who appear to have made a chemical analysis of it, pretend that the roots of the dog's-tooth contain a large quantity of oil, earth, and several acid liquids, as well as a little fixed salt. "According to all appearance," they add, "the roots act by means of a salt analogous to salt of coral, enveloped in a great deal of sulphur." Instead of mocking us with such fantastic analyses, which can only excite the laughter of our modern chemists, Tournefort and Bernard de Jussieu would have deserved better of science if they had applied themselves to the task of introducing light and order into the cloudy chaos of the _Graminaceæ_ of the botanists of their age. * * * * * But winter is passing away, and the time for the singing of birds is at hand. Already the earth is awakening from her prolonged lethargy; the hedgerows are green with budding leaves; the purple crocuses shine in many a sheltered field; on bank and brae, in glen and vale, the glory of the primrose makes glad the heart of man; the wood anemone hangs its delicate head in the woodlands; and it seems as if a gladder feeling animated the universal nature. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--On bank and brae, in glen and vale.] And the heart and the brain and the soul sympathise in this apparent delight of material things; the heart beating more freely, the brain feeling a stronger working power, and the soul rising to purer views of life and its duties:-- "Oh, who can speak the joys of spring's young morn, When wood and pasture open on his view, When tender green buds blush upon the thorn, And the first primrose dips its leaves in dew!" FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 12: Chaplin Child, "Beredici," p. 171.] [Footnote 13: Pliny, "Historia Naturalis," Book xi.] [Footnote 14: De Saussure, "Voyage dans les Alpes," Book iii., p. 45 (ed. 1803, Neufchâtel).] [Footnote 15: Annales de Chimie et de Physique, vol. xxvii., p. 134.] [Footnote 16: Philosophical Transactions, 1820, vol. ii., p. 165.]