Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/502

414 NOTES AND QUERIES. [10 S. XI. 22, 1909 of the annual festival called Fuh (lit. Suppression, occurring some days after the summer solstice), a practice said to have arisen in the year 676 (Sze-Ma Tsien, 'Shi-ki,' written c. 99, tom. v.).

Apropos of these, I may mention that the Arabians of yore were in the habit of hanging the corpse of any lion that had been guilty of homicide, as an example to its fellows (A. Lacassagne, 'De la Criminalité chez les Animaux,' Revue Scientifique, 14 Janvier, 1882, p. 35).

(10 S. x. 401, 457, 514; xi. 75, 133, 194, 310).—While readily and cordially acknowledging the learning and research displayed in 's last communication, I venture to think that investigators may still consider it worth their while to "waste time over America" before they are satisfied that no possible help can come from that quarter. has set at rest several doubtful questions, and has corrected the inaccuracies of former writers. This "straightening-out" will be of considerable advantage to the topographer of the future; but while we have pierced through the mirage to a certain extent, we have not yet reached its source.

's point is that while nothing is heard of the American Pimlico, as the name of a bird, till the year 1614, the English Pimlico, as the name of a place, occurs in 1609, and possibly, as the name of a man, in 1598. The margin of years is not great, being in the longest case sixteen years, and in the shortest, only five; but in the absence of other evidence it is perhaps sufficient to justify in assuming that the English name had the priority in date, and could not, therefore, have been borrowed from America. It is odd that such an uncommon name should have appeared in literature on both sides of the Atlantic within the restricted period of a dozen years or so, but one cannot found an argument on a coincidence.

If we look to the evidence on record, we find the Rev. Lewis Hughes writing on 21 Dec., 1614, that about the middle of October "birds which we call cahouze and Pimlicoes come in." The expression "we call" seems to indicate that the birds were familiarly known to seamen by those names. The narrative does not assert that the names originated in 1614.

With regard to the "Ale-banters" story, I agree with the explanation suggested by. The "description of the bird" is shown by to have been written in 1619, but the date at which the "Ale-banters of London" were "sent over" does not appear. If they were responsible for the name of the bird, it must have been previous to December, 1614. Not having the 'N.E.D.' at my elbow, I do not feel sure what "ale-banters" or "ale-hanters" were; but I imagine they were persons whom the Prohibitionist would regard in sorrow, if not in anger. They were, as the historian hints, on intimate terms with the Hoxton Pimlico, and in the cry of the bird they may have recognized a familiar sound. But I still doubt if these Trinculos on reaching the "still-vexed Bermoothes" could have had sufficient philological influence to enable the name to gain currency so far away as the Bahamas.

The weight of evidence is in favour of the bird having been called after its cry, but there is no improbability in the supposition that more than one body of mariners may have caught at the same idea. Even Ben Pimlico, if such a person existed, may have derived his name from possessing a raucous voice which resembled that of the bird. To sum up, while the first recorded mention of the bird up to the present time occurs in 1614, there is nothing to show that it was not known to the old seadogs of the Spanish Main several years before that date.

There is, I admit, no evidence to show that a Pimlico island existed in the sixteenth century, but himself points out that in the New World local names change more frequently than in the Old, and some island which is now known under another appellation may once have borne that title. Other beer-gardens in London were known under American or insular designations, as I pointed out in my first article; and the quotation which I gave from 'Pimlyco, or Runne Red Cap,' showed that the Hoxton gardens had only recently been started in 1609, when the practice of giving such names was greatly in vogue.

The fact that there exists, or has existed, a place in Cornwall called Pimligo—a form which (ante, p. 76) showed was also used in connexion with the Hoxton gardens—may suggest the idea that the name may owe its origin to the "Celtic fringe." Just as my own ancestors derived their name from a hamlet near Luxulyan, so Ben Pimlico's forebears may have hailed from the neighbourhood of Bodmin. The popularity of the gardens