Linseed

“ To make Linseed tea, wash two ounces of Linseed by putting them into a small strainer, and pouring cold water through it; then pare off as thinly as possible the yellow rind of half a lemon; to the Linseed and lemon rind add a quart of cold water, [204] and allow them to simmer over the fire for an hour-and-a-half; strain away the seeds, and to each half-pint of the tea add a teaspoonful of sugar, or sugar candy, with some lemon juice, in the proportion of the juice of one lemon to each pint of tea.
The seeds afford but little actual nourishment, and are difficult of digestion ”

“ He seems there to speak of the cotton-tree, though Fée suggests that he may possibly allude to the “Bombax pentandrum” of Linnæus.
841 It is the mucilage of the perisperm that is so useful in medicine. As an article of food, the farina of linseed is held in no esteem whatever. In times of scarcity, attempts have been made to mix it with flour or meal, but the result has been found to be heavy and indigestible, and has caused, it is said, the death even of those who have eaten of it in considerable quantities. ”

“ An infusion of the seeds called Linseed Tea is a common popular demulcent remedy.
Adulteration—Linseed is very liable to adulteration with other seeds, especially when the commodity is scarce. The admixture in question is due in part to careless harvesting and in part to intentional additions. In 1864 the impure condition of the linseed shipped to the English market had become so detrimental to the trade that the importers and crushers founded an association called The Linseed Association of London, by which they bound themselves to refuse all linseed containing more than 4 per cent. ”

“ Put a table-spoonful of linseed into a clean earthen pot or pipkin with a quart of water, and a little orange or lemon rind; boil this gently for about ten minutes, and then strain it through muslin into a jug; sweeten with honey or sugar, add the juice of a lemon, stir all together, and give this beverage to allay irritation of the chest and lungs—in the latter case, the lemon juice had better be omitted. Linseed tea in its purest form is an excellent accessory in aiding to relieve such as are afflicted with gout, gravel, etc. ”

“ It causes the hair of an animal to become slick and glossy and induces shedding in the spring, but is very heating in summer. Linseed gruel is a food, being palatable and easily digested, for horses, cattle and sheep, not only good in health, but in debilitating diseases, also in chronic skin diseases. It acts in such cases both as food and medicine. In febrile diseases horses will often sip or drink cold linseed tea (linseed meal two ounces to one pint of water) when they will not touch anything else. When a patient is exhausted the linseed tea is given with milk, eggs and whisky. ”

“ The nitrogen of the testa, or covering of the seeds, will hardly be so assimilable as that which exists in their cotyledons. The solubility of the flesh-formers—provided they be highly elaborated—is a very good criterion of their nutritive power. In linseed the muscle-forming substances are more soluble than in linseed-cake—the heat which is generally employed in the extraction of oil from linseed rendering the plastic materials of the resultant cake less soluble, and diminishing thereby their digestibility, as practice has proved. ”

“ One day, however, I was comforted to see some starlings, after a good meal of groats, run off to the grass plot and eagerly peck at the hoar-frost, which, while it exists, thus supplies the lack of water.
Bewick says linnets are so named from their fondness for linseed, and I think most of the finches like it. The greenfinch is soon attracted by hemp seed, and all the smaller birds by canary seed. I hope this paper may induce many kind hands to minister to the needs of our featheredp. 199 friends during the winter months. ”

“ For linseed poultices, take the best grade of linseed meal, pour hot water over it until it becomes pasty. Charcoal and antiseptics are often mixed with it. When used as a poultice on the foot in nail pricks, always put on a poultice that will cover the whole foot. ”

“ Its intensity seems due, however, in some degree at least, to the weathering of the brown fringes of the feathers which hide the more brilliant hue, and in the Atlantic islands examples are said to retain their gay tints all the year round, while throughout Europe there is scarcely a trace of them visible in autumn and winter; but, beginning to appear in spring, they reach their greatest brilliancy towards midsummer; they are never assumed by examples in confinement. The linnet begins to breed in April, the nest being generally placed in a bush at no great distance from the ground. ”

“ The seeds come to us chiefly from the Baltic. Nevertheless, the plant (Linum usitatissimum) is by no means uncommon in our cornfields, flowering in June, and ripening its seed in September. Provincially it is called "Lint" and "Lyne." A rustic proverb says "if put in the shoes it preserves [203] from poverty"; wherever found it is probably an escape from cultivation.
The word "flax" is derived from filare, to spin, or, filum, a thread; and the botanical title, linum, is got from the Celtic lin also signifying thread. ”

“ So he carried off Linnet to an upland village perched high on the slopes behind the Lake of Thun⁠—⁠not to a great hotel or crowded pension, where she would breathe bad air, eat made French dishes, drink doubtful wine, keep very late hours, and mix with exciting company, but to a châlet nestling high beneath a clambering pinewood, among Alpine pastures thick with orchids and globe-flowers, where she might live as free and inhale as pure and unpolluted an atmosphere as in their own green Zillerthal. ”

“ Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards, and amongst stacks.
The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four ”

“ The plant here called Missne, and used for food by the people, is the Water Dragons (Calla palustris) ; while that given to cattle is the Menyanthes (trifoliata) . Horses are fed with the finest tops of the twigs of spruce fir, chopped extremely small, and mixed with an equal quantity of barley. Such feed is used only in times of great scarcity, but it is very excellent provender.
The church of this place is but small.
The herbs I collected hereabouts were Mesomora (Cornus suecica) with a proliferous blossom. Spergula marina with spatulate petals, ten stamens, and three very short pistils. ”

“ We cannot but pause again and again as we make our way through the gorse and brushwood, for the little Linnet in his full summer dress is hardly less beautiful than the Goldfinch, and all his ways and actions are no less cheering and attractive. The male birds differ much, perhaps according to age, in brilliancy of plumage; but a fine cock Linnet in full dress of crimson breast and crown, white wing-bars and tail-feathers, and chestnut back, is to my thinking as splendid a little bird as these islands can show. ”

“ All along by the road side I remarked the curious manner in which the Fir blossoms. Its branches produce a fresh shoot every year from their extremity; by observing the series of which shoots the age of the tree can be accurately computed. They retain their original leaves, which are needle-shaped, for three years; but when these fall the same branch never acquires any more. The male flowers, each of which is a corymbus of stamens, grow from the side of the present year's shoot, near its base; but the female ones proceed from the extreme point, and are round and red. ”

“ After the field has lain fallow three or four years, it is sown with one part rye and two parts barley, mixed together. The seed is committed to the ground in spring, as soon as the earth is capable of tillage. The barley grows rank, ripens its ears, and is reaped. The rye in the mean while goes into leaf, but shoots up no stem, as the barley smothers it and retards its growth. After the latter is reaped, the rye advances [Pg 58] in growth, and ripens the year following, without any further cultivation, the crop being very abundant. The corn so produced is called Kappsäd. ”

“ And if my wife had drawn a distinction between the linnet and her great parrot, more like a vulture than a cage-bird, I would have candidly confessed to a difference in my regard for the two fowls. Linnets are very harmless, I fancy. At any rate, ours never does anything more outrageous than splash its water and seed about of a morning. For the rest of the day it is mostly hopping off the floor on to the perch and back again, except when you go to look at it close. It then hops only sideways off the perch on to the wires of the cage, and back again. ”

“ They would eat nothing, and, as a last resort, the nest was replaced in the vines. The father came back soon, talked with his children, brooded them, fed them day after day, brought them up to maturity, and turned out as prosperous a family of young linnets as there was in that neighborhood. Mr. Linnet can have the most positive certificate of rare domestic virtues. There is the slight drawback that he paints, does all the singing, and is rather vain; while Mrs. Linnet is a plain, unassuming bird, always clad in gray, and is not up in music. ”

“ It builds its nest generally in holes in trees, but sometimes in old walls. The structure is composed of dry grass, dead leaves, and moss, with an inner lining of hair and feathers.
[Pg 238] THE LINNET.
Male Linnets vary almost as much in the colour of their feathers as they do in the quality of their songs. A fine specimen, arrayed in all the glory of his summer dress, has the forehead and crown glossy blood-red, the rest of the head black, and sides of the neck brownish-grey, back and upper wing coverts deep reddish-brown; wing quills dusky, edged with white; upper tail coverts dark brown ”

“ Nearly allied to the foregoing species is the twite, so named from its ordinary call-note, or mountain-linnet, the Linota flavirostris, or L. montium of ornithologists, which can be distinguished by its yellow bill, longer tail and reddish-tawny throat. This bird never assumes any crimson on the crown or breast, but the male has the rump at all times tinged more or less with that colour. ”

“ Betwixt these the pistil is situated, being bent towards one side as in labiate [Pg 230] plants. The upper lip therefore is to be understood as consisting of two lobes, the lower of three, though all the lobes are alike [50] .
The bogs were now white with the tufts of both kinds of Cotton-grass, the upright and the pendulous (Eriophorum vaginatum and polystachion) . The marshes were clothed with the white blossoms of Ledum (palustre) . The Dwarf Bramble (Rubus arcticus) became gradually less abundant. ”

“ We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common linnets; more, I think, than can be bred in any one district. These, I observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break up their winter quarters and betake themselves to their proper summer homes. ”

“ The Linnet, with its close allies the Twite and the Lesser Redpole, are familiar winter visitors to the fields, wandering about in flocks, each usually composed of a single species. As we have already seen, the Twite is a common bird in summer upon the moors; in autumn it leaves them in companies for the fields. In its habits the Linnet is very similar. All the winter through large flocks—sometimes numbering many hundreds of birds—resort to certain weed-grown pastures and stubbles, where they spend most of the day upon the ground in never-ending quest of tiny seeds. ”

“ The linnets love to be about houses, and very frequently make their nests on any exposed beams which they can find in verandas or porches, rather than in trees or bushes. I have seen hundreds of them in such places. This pair of linnets quietly completed their nest, and it already held one or two eggs, when a pair of barn-swallows arrived, and after looking at the place, and evidently talking the matter over in their own fashion, decided to take possession of it for themselves by driving out the linnets, and forthwith a violent battle commenced. ”

“ I verily believe that these young birds cannot digest flesh, but are obliged to wait till it decays and affords them maggots and vermin. Their bills and cere were black. The egg was almost globular, white, the size of that of a guinea-hen.
Here and there among the rocks small patches of vegetation were to be seen, full of variety of herbaceous plants, among others the Heart's Ease, Viola tricolor [10] , of which some of the flowers were white; others blue and white; others with the [Pg 42] upper petals blue and yellow, the lateral and lower ones blue ”

“ It is a very rare plant, and grows so sparingly, that, after finding one specimen, there is little hope of soon meeting with another [49] .
The root is throughout of the thickness of a very small quill, white, smooth, fleshy, [Pg 224] almost horizontal, branched and subdivided like a coral; the branches obtuse, and very slightly compressed, destitute of capillary fibres. Stem erect, simple, smooth, six inches high. Leaves none, except three sheaths, each longer and narrower than that below it, which reaches above its base, and all cylindrical, of a pale flesh-colour. ”