y, ramping, prowling."

Eccles cakes are delicious Currant sandwiches which are very
popular in Manchester.

Black Currant jelly should not be made with too much sugar, else
its medicinal-virtues will be impaired. A teaspoonful of this jelly
may be given three or four times in the day to a child with thrush.
In Russia the leaves of the black Currant are employed to fabricate
brandy made with a coarse spirit. These leaves and the fruit are
often combined by our herbalists with the seeds of the wild carrot
for stimulating the kidneys in passive dropsy. A medicinal wine is
also brewed from the fruit together with honey. In this country we
use a decoction of the leaf, or of the bark as a gargle. In Siberia
black Currants grow as large as hazel nuts. Both the black and the
red Currants afford a pleasant home-made wine. _Ex eo optimum
vinum fieri potest non deterius vinis vetioribus viteis_, wrote
Haller in 1750. White Currants, however, yield the best wine, and
this may be improved by keeping, even for twenty years. Dr.
Thornton says: "I have used old wine of white Currants for
calculous affections, and it has surpassed all expectation."

A delicate jelly is made from the red Currant at Bas-le-duc; and a
well-known nursery rhyme tells of the tempting qualities of
"cherry pie, and currant wine." A rob of black Currant jam is taken
in Scotland with whiskey toddy. Shakespeare in the _Winter's
Tale_ makes Antolycus, the shrewd "picker-up of unconsidered
[141] trifles" talk of buying for the sheep-shearing feast "three
pounds of sugar, five pounds of currants, and rice." In France a
cordial called _Liqueur de cassis_ is made from black Currants;
and a refreshing drink, _Eau de groseilles_, from the red.

Some forty years ago, at the time of the Crimean war a patriotic
song in praise of the French flag was most popular in our streets,
and had for its refrain, "Hurrah for the Red, White, and Blue!" So
valuable for food and physics are our tricoloured Currants that the
same argot may be justly paraphrased in their favour, with a
well-merited eulogium of "Hurrah for the White, Red, Black!"

DAFFODIL.

The yellow Daffodil, which is such a favourite flower of our early
Spring because of its large size, and showy yellow color, grows
commonly in English woods, fields, and orchards. Its popular
names, Daffodowndilly, Daffodily, and Affodily, bear reference to
the Asphodel, with which blossom of the ancient Greeks this is
iden