W H A T ' S IN A
G. D.
NAME?
HEATHCOTE
'What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.' (Romeo and Juliet) Dßring my lifetime the world of natural history has changed almost beyond belief. When I was a child, small boys in country districts were expected to have a collection of birds' eggs and most elementary (primary) schools had a rack of jam jars containing wild flowers identified, not necessarily correctly, by 'Miss'. Today, collecting is generally discouraged or even forbidden by law, and what I would call 'Natural history' or biology is no longer taught. On the plus side, it is now possible for anyone to watch superb television films showing the most intimate details of living plants and animals, from all over the world, in their natural habitats. Books are now readily available which enable a naturalist to put a name to all common plants and animals although, even today, books have not been produced which enable many invertebrates, micro-fungi, and other less 'populär' members of our flora or fauna (few of which have common, i.e. generally-recognised English names) to be identified. It is on English rather than scientific names that I wish to comment here, and specifically those used in Suffolk. I spent my childhood on the edge of the South Downs in Sussex and only came to Suffolk to live in 1962. Perhaps to many local people I am still a foreigner? When I first came here I often found it hard to understand the speech of our local farm workers (and doubtless they failed to understand . me). T h e n , a local school teacher could sometimes identify the specific village from the Bradfield group near Bury St. Edmunds from which the children came, by slight differences in speech, and of course there were similar small differences in speech throughout the county. Today, with television and the radio in most homes, better communications generally, and many people moving into East Anglia, speech is much more uniform. Although I am an entomologist and not an etymologist (I study 'bugs' not words) I find the local names of plants and animals of great interest. They often show countryfolk's familiarity with wildlife, but may refiect superstition, incorrect identification or wrong interpretation of behaviour. When involved in adult education classes in rural Suffolk I usually ask members for lists of the local plant and animal names which they used as children. Many such names turn out to be more widely used, in southern England at least. If, for example, I used the same name as a child in Sussex, I do not count it as a specifically 'Suffolk' name. Of course my students do not always correctly identify the species involved, the use of some names may be very local indeed and not used throughout Suffolk, so my lists are of limited value. It is, however, possible to confirm that some of the names given to me are true 'Suffolk' names by referring to Claxton (1960), Forby (1830), Massingham (1925) or Moor Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 25