Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/301

 io s. XIL SEPT. 25, am] NOTES AND QUERIES.

245

Hill's Chapel on one side, and the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on the other " (Kitton, * The Dickens Country,' pp. 35-6, with a view). It is a toolshop, and there is no mention of the house or sign, either in the first or second edition of Boyne's 'Tokens of the Seven- teenth Century,' or in the Catalogue of the Beaufoy tokens in the Guildhall.

" The Dog's Head in the Pot " was the sign of a house in the Market Square, in the rear of the Corn Exchange, Bishop's Stortford, in 1684. It still stands there, but modern sign-painters have robbed the dog of his pot (Glasscock, ' The Records of St. Michael's Parish Church, Bishop's Stort- ford,' pp. 80, 109).

There is a still earlier instance in the ' Colloquies ' of Erasmus in * The Rich Beggars,' a conversation between a parson and Conrade (i. 358) :

Parson. There's a publick Inn here in this Town.

Conrade. What sign has it ?

Parson. Upon a Board that hangs up, you will see a Dog throating his Head into a Porridge-Pot. This is acted to the Life in the Kitchen ; and a Wolf sits at the Bar.

I am quoting from the translation edited by the Rev. E. Johnson, 1878.

"The Dog's head in the pott" is noted in the registers of West Ham in 1663 (Fry, ' History of the Parishes of East and West Ham,' p. 200). A. RHODES.

INSECT NAMES IN SCOTLAND. The sub- joined extract from The Scotsman of 29 May last is perhaps worthy of preservation in ' N. & Q.' :-

" Some Scottish insect names. In the following list will be found the Scottish names of some insects and other ' creeping, crawling ferlies ' : A beetle is a ' clock.' In the old Scots poem of ' Christis Kirk on the Green ' we read :

Scho compt him nocht twa clokkis. So, too, Burns in his ' Twa Dogs ' :

The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone. The earwig (Anglo-Saxon wiga, a worm) was believed to creep into the brain through the ear ; hence it is known in French as perce-oreille, and in German as Ohr-wurm (ear-worm). It is known to Scottish children as a ' forker ' or ' forky-tail,' in reference to the peculiar forceps at the ex- tremity of its body. Compare its scientific name of Forficula auricularia. The lady-bird (i.e., Our Lady's bird) is a ' clock-leddie.' " It is a favourite with children, who in Roxburghshire call it a ' red coat.' They pick it up and throw it into the air to make it open its wings, saying at the same time :

Red coat, red coat, flee away,

And make the morn a sunny day.

In other well-known rhymes it figures as ' Lady

Landers ' and ' King Colowa.' The French call

it bete de la merge ; with the Germans it is the

Marienhahn, Marienkuh, or MarienMfer.^ It thus rejoices in a ' commodity of good names.' A centipede in Roxburghshire is a ' Meggie-monie- feet ' ; elsewhere it is ' Jock (or Jenny )-wi'-the- monie-feet.' A woolly-bear is a ' hairy-oobit ' ; and daddy-long-legs, or perhaps rather his wife, Is a ' Jenny -guid-spinner.' The wood-louse (or' sow bug) is a ' sclater,' as it is often found under bhe slates and elsewhere. In Latin it is porcellio,. from some fancied resemblance to a pig whence the Italian porcellino while in some parts of France it is known as ' St. Antony's pig ' (cochon de Saint Antoine). The gadfly or horse-fly is a ' cleg.' The spider is sometimes called an ' otter-- cap, or ' attircop ' (Anglo-Saxon atter-coppa, [iterally ' poison -bag,' as spiders were believed to- be poisonous) :

A fiery ettercap, a fractious chiel,

As het as ginger and as stieve as steel. In some parts of the country it is considered un- lucky to kill a spider, and there is an old English couplet to this effect :

If you wish to live and thrive,

Let the spider run alive. The caterpillar (perhaps a corruption of the French name, chate-pelouse, snaggy cat) is a ' kail-worm.' The humble-bee is a ' bummie-bee ' ; various 1 species are known as ' Canny Nannies,' ' red- doups,' ' todler-tykes,' ' gairy-bees ' (the word ' gairy ' meaning having streaks . or bands of different colours). The butterfly chrysalis is known to the children in Roxburgshire as a ' Tammie-noddie-heid.' A. G."

ALEX. RUSSELL.

Stromness.

" COUP DE JARNAC." The phrase " coup de Jarnac " has, I think, been taken in England only as meaning an unexpected but decisive blow, while in France a sinister meaning seems in time to have attached to- it, implying a foul stroke. M. Alfred Franklin, has published an account of the Jarnac duel- from a contemporary and official record, showing that to the spectators the stroke which ham-strung La Chataigneraie was perfectly fair, the King, who wished Jarnac. to be beaten, saying to him at the end,. " You have fought like Caesar, and spoken like Aristotle." The work is published by Simile Paul (' Le Duel de Jarnac ').

R. W. P.

SHAKESPEARE STATUETTE. At 8 S. xii. 284 I gave a notice of some interesting Shakspeare relics. The Daily Chronicle for 2 July last contained on p. 5 a description of another relic, to be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby on 13 July, which, if authentic, is of greater interest than those I recorded.

This relic, accor ding to the pedigree given, is nothing less than a contemporary statuette of the poet, only recently rediscovered. It is 15 in. high, carved in mulberry wood,