Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/239

 I. MARCH 5, 19MJ NOTES AND QUERIES.

195

ably representing an Anglo-Saxon mono- syllable, as "cushat" does A.-S. cusceote. Are the names onomatopcean, like the verb


 * ' to COO " 1 HTS-RTIFRT V \ v WP-T.T.

This name for wood-pigeon was twenty or thirty years ago very well known in Wor- cestershire and Herefordshire. I have heard it pronounced " queece " by a Staffordshire man. The accepted spelling was "quest," and I believe the Quest Hill, at Malvern, takes its name from this word. I have made inquiries in Sussex, Kent, and Leicestershire, but the term seemed unknown there.

W. H. QUARRELL. 3, East India Avenue, E.G.

HONOUR OF TUTBURY (10 th S. i. 127). The reason for the superior jurisdiction of the Honour of Tutbury over the Hundred of Hemlingford is rendered obvious by a consideration of the meaning in this con- nexion of the word ' ' honour." It is from the fountain of honour, i.e., the Crown, that flow dignities or privileges and degrees of nobility, knighthood, &c., and an "honour" is a seignory of several manors held under one baron or lord paramount, himself owing allegiance to the Crown. The King's stewarc of the honour of Tutbury formerly held an annual court for the royal forest or chase 01 Need wood, called the Woodmote Court, al which all the forest officers attended, and a jury of twenty-four men, who lived within the jurisdiction (i.e. of the honour, arid not of the hundred), "presented and amerced al] incroachments and offences in the forest and wood, and in vert and venison."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

MILESTONES (10 th S. i. 7, 132). What evidence is there for the existence of Roman milestones before the time of Caius Grac- chus, to whom Plutarch attributes them? Mommsen (iv. chap, ix.) so far agrees with Plutarch as to state that to C. Gracchus, " or at any rate to the allotment commission, the

custom of erecting milestones appears to be traceable" (Dickson's trans., 1887, iii. 404). For the Miliarium Popilianum, which belongs to this epoch, see 'Corp. Inscr. Lat.,' i. 551. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

BREAKING GLASS AT JEWISH WEDDINGS (9* S. xii. 46, 115, 214, 337, 435).-! may be per- mitted to state, under this heading, that in this province of Kii and the adjoining Idzumi people sometimes break a suribachi at their weddings, just after the bride and bridegroom have retired to their chamber from the hall where the banquet is held after that breaking. This mnhachi is an earthenware of daily use,

in which an indispensable food substance called miso, prepared from beans, is softened with a peculiarly shaped pestle (suri kogi).* Its breaking in the ceremony is accompanied with loud outbursts of joj 7, " Broken, broken !" (ivareta, wareta !) " in segno di averle levata la verginita." KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.

"TRAVAILLER POUR LE Roi DE PRUSSE" (9 th S. xi. 289, 392, 437, 496 ; xii. 34, 111, 270, 370, 455). I think that MR. JOHN HUTCHIN- SON should have quoted a little more from Larousse, as otherwise, without referring to that useful work, any one might suppose that the origin put forward definitely settled the question, whereas, although Larousse gives it the preference, yet he begins by saying :

"L'originedeceprpverbetest fort incertaine, bien que deux versions differentes la fassent egalement remonter k Frederic II. Ce qui est certain, c'est qu ; pn n'en trouve pas de traces avant la seconde moitie" du xviii' siecle."

He then gives a version similar to that I have already quoted, and adds the version quoted at 9 th S. xii. 455. EDWARD LATHAM.

" COCKSHUT TIME" (10 th S. i. 121). Yarrell, over sixty years ago, in his ' British Birds,' gave what appears a satisfactory explanation of this word. Describing the habits of the woodcock, he says :

"Towards night it sallies forth on silent wing, pursuing a well-known track through the cover to its feeding-ground. These tracks or open glades in woods are sometimes called cockshoots and cock- roads, and it is in these places that nets called road- nets were formerly suspended for their capture, but the gun is now the more common means of obtaining them."

Yarrell was not only eminent as a naturalist, but was well known as a keen sportsman, hence I should say his account is valuable, and it agrees with PROF. SKEAT'S.

G. T. SHERBORN.

Twickenham.

Amongst the many suggestions as to the origin of the word "cockshoot," there is one >hat has not been mentioned, and with much icsitation I venture to enter into the field of derivations. Many years ago, perhaps sixty, a field near the old grammar school of Con- leton, in Cheshire, went by the name of the 'Cockshoots," and was always popularly

This pestle is often vulgarly adduced with ihallic meaning in Japan ; cf. " le baton qui s'agite lans la baratte produit le beurre " under ' B;\to ' n A. de Gubernatis's ' Mythologie des Plantes,' 1878, Mm. i. p. 48.

t DR. KRUEGER will please note that it is not I, ut Larousse. who calls it a proverb.