Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/43

 io s. xii. JULY 10, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

31

"*' kacab," and in his list of the fishes of Amboina (p. 342) describes the " Zap-Zap fish " as " very small." (The cockup, according to Yule, " grows to an immense size, sometimes to eight feet in length.") This siap or zap may possibly be identified with the (ikan) siya of Wilkinson's ' Malay- English Dictionary,' where it is described as " a freshwater fish (unidentified)," and the final p may have got in through confusion with the alternative name of the estuarial fish.

No instances of the literary use of the word " cockup " are given in ' Hobson- Jobson,' and the ' N.E.D.' contains only two one of 1845, and the other of 1854. 'The second, from the Rev. C. D. Badham's Pish Tattle,' p. 114, gives an amusingly incorrect derivation of the word : " the Lates nobilis, somewhat freely rendered ' cock-up fish ' by the Bengalese." I wonder where the reverend M.D. found this explanation.
 * Prose Halieutics ; or, Ancient and Modern

Tenneiit, in his ' Natural History of Ceylon' (1861), gives the alternative scien- tific name of the cockup, Lates calcari/er, Bl., but says nothing about the fish. Nor, as far as I have been able to find, do any of the other writers on Ceylon mention it, with the exception of Cordiner, who in his says :
 * Description of Ceylon' (1807), i. 444,

" The fishes are the same as those found in other parts of the Indian seas. But few of them are equal in flavour or delicacy to those which inhabit colder

climates Many of those of the ocean are larger

than cod or salmon. The most common are seer- fish, cockup, pomfret," &c.

As Cordiner was chaplain in Ceylon from 1799 to 1804, it is evident that the word of the eighteenth century, and earlier in- stances of its use may very probably be found. Meanwhile, however, this example, from Cordiner is some forty years earlier than the first, given in the ' N.E.D.'
 * l cockup " was well established by the end

DONALD FERGUSON.

MECHANICAL ROAD CARRIAGES : TIMOTHY BARSTALL (10 S. xi. 305, 374, 431, 498). Timothy Barstall of Leith had in hand, 14 July, 1825, a "steam coach," which was expected to start in about a fortnight. On 10 Nov. it was not moving yet, but was expected to do so in a month. On 19 Nov., 1828, a relative wrote :

"After all, Timothy is very likely to succeed in his steam coach affair, and to be most amply remunerated for all his labour. It has run on the

Ferry Road and in the Fort several times at the rate of eight to ten miles an hour with 16 or 20 people upon it." 'Correspondence of William Fowler ' (50 copies privately printed, 1907 ; one in B.M. Library), pp. 539, 541, 551, 607. As Mr. Barstall was first cousin to my father, I should be glad to know whether anything further came of his enterprise.

J. T. F. Durham.

"POT-GALLERY" (10 S. vii. 388, 431; viii. 172, 254, 312, 493, 517 ; ix. 36, 212 : xi. 333). I am afraid Miss LEGA-WEEKES'S suggestion that " putt-gallery " was the original spelling of the word will be found to be incorrect. To begin with, the earliest quotation given by SIR JAMES MURRAY at the first reference from Stow dates back to 1598, and the following ones have the orthography " pot-gallery," " pott-gallery " where the meaning is clearly that of a land- ing-stage. I see no reason for altering my opinion expressed at 10 S. ix. 36 that the word is corrupted from " boat-gallery." The ' N.E.D.' gives the early forms of " boat " as " boot," " bote," and " botte," while the mutation of b into p has been sufficiently accounted for. Why does the 'N.E.D.,' by the way, omit the above 1598 citation, and give one of 1630 as its earliest ?

As to " putt-gallery," a shed built over a mill-stream at Paris Garden, your lady correspondent may be right in deriving it from "to put," with the meaning of "a structure built out from another like a balcony " : but I think this may be a dis- tinct word, and probably an afterthought owing its existence to the prior term.

Finally, if I am wrong as to the derivation from " boat-gall ery," there is the alternative of the word being a shortened form of " port-gallery," which might easily occur through its constant use by sailors and watermen. The examples " port - bar," " port-highway," and " port-street " will all be found in the 'N.E.D.' by those who may take the trouble to hunt for them ; while " portage," from port, i.e. " to carry," would align itself more closely with the rather inelegant variant " putt-gallery."

N. W. HILL.

New York.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AND BARKING (10 S. xi. 447). The Rev. J. W. Cobb in his
 * History of Berkhamsted,' 1883, says :

"After the battle of Hastings, William crossed the Thames at Wallingford and proceeded to Berk- hamsted, where he halted, not, as (Jhauncy says, being compelled to do so by a stratagem of Frederick, Abbot of St. Albans, but in order to