Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/144

136 shoes, which the dog then began to eat. The scholar went out and set fire to the end of the house, and spoke the following lines:

This queer pedagoguish puzzle I got from a Fr. Moran, born about fifty years ago in Fermanagh; he heard it from his mother.

St. Louis.

Folk-names of British Birds.—Mr. Swainson's Folk-lore of British Birds is an interesting and useful work; yet, like every other book of folk-lore, it may be supplemented. He seems to have omitted to consult Gray's Birds of the West of Scotland, Glasgow, 1871, 520 pp., from which I take the following notes:—

Kestrel.—"I find, from Don's Fauna of Forfarshire, that this bird in his day was, not inappropriately, called Willie Whip the Wind,' p. 36.

Kite, "or salmon-tailed gled, as it is called," p. 42.

Golden Oriole.—"A recent contributor to Chambers's Journal remarks that 'the song of this splendid bird—a flute-like whistle, with a cadence not unlike speech—sounds ominous to the Low German short of coin; for Hans, drinking before the ale-house door, hears the Oriole sing from the lindens, Hast du gesopen? so betahl du (Hast thou quaffed? then pay), p. 81.

Common Whitethroat, "or Whiskey whey beard, as it is called in many parts of Scotland," p. 95.

Great Tit.—Its note "has obtained for it the name of Jacksaw in many parts of the country," p. 102.

Pied Wagtail.—"The Gaelic name of the bird—Breac-an-t'-sil—signifies a plaid, and has probably been applied to this wagtail from a resemblance which the contrasting colours of its plumage on the breast bears to that article of apparel when wrapped closely round