Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/551

10 S. X. 5, 1908.]

I may add that to this day many families in the island, both gentle and simple, and especially the gentler sex, show traces of their fairy ancestors.

The shipwreck that your Japanese correspondent asks about is lost in legend. It is said that when the bulbs were saved from it they were taken for edible tubers, but some, having been cooked and tasted, were disapproved of, and the whole lot cast on a piece of waste land, where, after a short time, they displayed themselves in all their glory. They are not to be met with wild, but do not receive much attention from gardeners, and flourish best when undisturbed. The soil in which they are grown is light and covered with sand. They are much rarer in the island than they were, and, unfortunately, unscrupulous vendors often sell the Nerine lily, a vastly inferior Amaryllis, for the A. sarniensis.

(10 S. x. 401).—Nares's 'Glossary' gives still another quotation for Pimlico, as a sort of ale:—

The Labour-in-vain was the sign of a negro washing his face, and was affected by shops as well as inns (Davies's 'Supplementary Glossary').

In addition to the examples given, I can add Pimlico Hill, in Oxted, Surrey, and a place called Pimlico, as well as a Pimlico Wood, in the parish of Cudham, Kent. These are from a very extensive list of field-names I have compiled at various times from various sources, chiefly the Ordnance maps.

(10 S. x. 167, 312, 352, 377).—Although not strictly pertaining to the topic under discussion, the following extract from Tit-Bits of 31 October seems worth including among other replies:—

I think it must have been about the year 1870 that the 6th Dragoon Guards adopted "I'm ninety-five." My father was about forty-five years of age when I remember his singing the first two lines, as follows:—

It must then have been quite a new song.

Has your correspondent consulted the old Book of Regimental Marches in the British Museum? (Mrs.)

(10 S. x. 149).—From very early days the Chinese seem to have followed this practice with the owl. Their name for it, Kiau, is represented with an ideograph composed of the two letters expressing bird and tree. Hü Shin's 'Shwoh-wan' (about 100 A. D.) explains this as follows:

According to the 'Yuen-kien-lui-han,' 1703, tom. cdxxvii. fol. 31a,

At times in this part the bodies of moles are gibbeted in farm-yards, but not