Here the "pique nique" is evidently the climax of all that is "straniero."
K. E.
Canker or Brier Rose (Vol. vii, p. 500.).—I suspect that this term refers to the beautiful mossy gall, so commonly seen on the branches of the wild rose, which has been called the bedeguar of the rose. This is the production of a cynips; and, from its vivid tints of crimson and green, might well pass at a short distance for a flower, brilliant, but scentless. Hence Shakspeare's allusion:
"The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses."
W. J. Bernhard Smith.
Temple.
Cancre and crabe in French are synonymous, meaning the same; Anglicè, crab (fish).
Now, we have crab-tree, a wild apple-tree; a canker rose, a wild rose; dog rose, dog-violet, horse leech, horse chestnut. In all these cases the prefix denotes inferiority of species.
H. F. B.