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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. APML 23, im

bird in its nuptial dress close to the Arctic Circle on the Yenisei. This was, so to speak, an outward visible sign of an inward and future clutch the spolia opima of the whole egg-collecting trip ; but circumstances pre- vented Mr. Seebohm reaching the nesting ground for which the bridal feathers had been growing. Next we hear of Dr. Finsch, who delights, as all oologists should, in a bird- like name, and he declared that he had found the downy young on the Yalrnal Peninsula. He seems to have failed in the exactly opposite way to Mr. Seebohm. We hear nothing from Dr. Finsch of a nuptial dress, he has to confine himself to baby-linen the fluffy down of the plump fledgelings.

The third enthusiast, a Dr. von Midden- dorf, nearly obtained the object of his quest, or at least he was nearly a whole egg-shell better than his predecessors, for he isdelighted to tell us that he found the desired birds on the tundras of the Taimijr in lat. 74 N., and secured a female with a partially shelled egg in her oviduct ! O that it had been possible for this glory to have fallen to one of our own countrymen ! Alas ! it has been other- wise, and this Dr. von Middendorf, pre- sumably a German, holds the world's record for possessing a larger quantity of authentic egg-shell from these three desired varieties of the Limicolee than any other collector. It seems sad to end the tale thus. Cannot Britons come in somewhere or somehow ? Well, there is just a chance. Of the last variety, the knot, there is an egg, not per- fectly authenticated, in the British Museum, in the Kensington department, and Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, the Curator, says, " it looks exactly the kind of egg one might expect the knot to lay," so perhaps the British Museum holds, as trustee for our oologists, the world's record after all. So mote it be.

To put myself in order I will conclude with a query. How can any one, even an expe- rienced oologist, " spot " an egg before it is ] aid ? NE QUID NIMIS.

"WAX TO RECEIVE. AND MARBLE TO RE- TAIN. Who wrote the above, referring to the mind during the period of youth ?

Lucis.

[Imitated from Cervantes by Byron, ' Bepno ' stanza 34.]

BIRCH, BURCII, OR BYRCH FAMILIES. I have collected a large amount of genealogical data relating to families of the above name in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Berk- shire, Essex, Kent, Middlesex, and elsewhere, covering the last 300 years. Being desirous >f obtaining further particulars, I shall be

pleased to correspond with any one able to assist me or desiring information.

HERBERT BIRCH.

10, Palmerston Mansions, West Kensington.

[We have no address for the gentleman after whom you ask further than that supplied.]

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND FOREIGN DECORA- TIONS. I distinctly remember reading some years ago an incident in connexion with Queen Elizabeth that one of her ambas- sadors, having been offered a decoration by the Government to which he was accredited, applied for permission to accept and wear it. This application she indignantly refused, with the remark that " English dogs shall only wear their master's collars."

Can any of your readers kindly tell me where this characteristic story of Queen Elizabeth is to be found 1 I expected to meet with it in Lord Chancellor Bacon's ' Collection of Apophthegms, New and Old,' but it is not there. JAMES WATSON.

Folkestone.

MARRIAGE OF JAMES, FIRST LORD DUNKELD. G. E. C., in his ' Complete Peerage,' states, following Douglas and Crawfurd, that Sir James Galloway, who was created Lord

Dunkeld by Charles I., married ,

daughter of Sir Robert Norter. Can any reader point out where proof of this or any other marriage of Lord Dunkeld can be found, or identify Sir Robert Norter, whose name seems to be utterly unknown 1 It seems possible that " Norter " may have been sub- stituted for some other name through mis- reading of a MS. or misprint. R. E. B.

NAPOLEONIC CONSPIRACY IN ENGLAND. I am desirous of knowing of a book or pamphlet, or other source, which would give information as to a plot that was formed in England in 1814 to assist Napoleon to leave Elba. I understand that communication was entered into with him, but that he refused to accept the offer of assistance. F. S.

' DIE AND BE DAMNED.' Who is T. Morti- mer, to whom the Editor, at 9 th S. iii. 128, attributes this polemic against the Methodists in general, and the Rev. Mr. Romaine in par- ticular ? F.

ALEXANDER GARDEN, M.D. Dr. Garden, a botanist of Charlestown, South Carolina, and a vice-president of the Royal Society, died in 1791. In the ' D.N.B.' his father is said to be a Rev. Alexander Garden, of the Church of England, who went out to Charles- town in 1719. A collateral branch of his family state that the parentage given in