Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/348

 286 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. OCT. 7. •see me you know me.' And I can refer for a third to Shirley's 'Triumph of Peace' <Gifford's ' Shirley,' vi. 280), 1633. H. C. HART. ROBESPIERRE'S ARREST AND THE MOON.— In that interesting book 'Robespierre and the Red Terror,' by Dr. Jan ten Brink (trans- lated from the Dutch by J. Hedeman), there is a picture of the scene outside the H6tel de Ville on the night of 9 Thermidor (27 July. 1794), the night that Robespierre was arrested by the National Convention. In this picture &fidi moon is shown high in the sky. Now I find by calculation that there was a new moon on 27 July, 1794. The full moon shown in the picture had therefore no existence except in the mind of the artist, and this shows how little reliance can be placed on the accuracy of historical pictures. J. ELLARD GORE. Dublin. LAURENCE WASHINGTON'S DEATH.—I have •discovered at Dr. Plume's Library, Maldon, E^sex, in a certified copy of the parish re- gisters, this entry, amongst the burials : "Mr Laurence Washington 21 January 1653." This is a piece of information lacking in •any of the literature which I have found on the subject. There can be no doubt that this is the entry of the burial of the erewhile rector of Purleigh. His widow was buried at Tring in the following year (19 Jan., 1654). R. T. LOVE, Rector of Purleigh. " DRAPER ": OMISSION FROM THE ' N.E.D.'— The 'N.E.D.' strangely omits the form "drapier," which seems to have been the spelling usual in the eighteenth century. The form is immortalized in the title of Swift's work ' The Drapier's Letters.' ALEX. LEEPER. Trinity College, University of Melbourne. " POTTO": ITS ETYMOLOGY.—It seems highly probable that this popular and well-known name for an animal found both in the West Indies and in Africa will turn out to be a _" ghost-word." Our only authority for it is Bosnian, who was chief Dutch factor at Elmina, and made a memorable voyage along the Guinea coast in 1698. In his letters, original Dutch edition of 1704, p. 32, he speaks of " een beest, 'tgeen by de negers de naem van potto draegt." This is the source -of the modern usage of the term by naturalists, but I find no trace of it in any dictionary of the Gold Coast tongues. On the other hand, Mr. Skues, in his account of an independent investigation (Proc. Zool. Soc., 18C9, p. 2), says, "The natives call the Potto aposoro"; and similarly in Cassell's ' Natural History,' 1896, vol. i. p. 243, it is stated. "The negroes seemed to be much afraid of the Potto, which they called aposo." I am driven to the con- clusion that either Bosman wrongly appre- hended the word, or his printer misread his manuscript. JAS. PLATT, Jun. FOXES AS FOOD FOR MEN.—On p. 5 of The Standard, 8 September, and under the head- ing ' Parisian Topics,' it is stated :— "I found out to-day that foxes are classed as game in France and are poached as such, but whether for their pelts or their flesh, or merely in sport, I could not ascertain. But the poachers of the Seine et Marne district have a special way of their own for getting Reynard out of his earth which is so contrary to the elementary rules of sport that I must conclude that in their case, at least, the sporting instinct is absent. A rag soaked in petroleum is tied to the tail of a live rat, and lighted just as the animal is thrust into a hole where a fox has been located. The tortured beast rushes about until he comes to the fox's nest, which generally takes fire, sending its scared occupant out into the open. There the poacher is waiting, finger on trigger, and ' he never misses.' I am curious to know what punishment our hunting squires at home would reserve for these individuals." I have been told that the flesh of the fox is used for food in some parts of Spain, and also that broth made of dogs' flesh is given to delicate children. MR. J. PLATT, in his recent letter on 'Vixens and Drunkenness' (10th S. iii. 437), has not proved that the Catalan for fox, guineu, cannot be a first cousin to Castilian viiiero, i.e., in a joking sense, a viner. E. S. DODGSON. "CATAMARAN.''—In the latest book on the great Douglas cause the author tells us that the Duke of Douglas " had something wild and barbarous in his nature—something of the old type of Highland chief or catamaran." Highland chiefs were never Madras surf boat- men, but even if the printer is responsible for the longer word, still caterans were never chiefs, nor was the Duke a Highlander. The sentence which follows is a gem of its kind : " He was long unmarried, and remained so for the greater portion of his life." A. T. M. [Catamaran is applied to a cross-grained j«rsop. See • V !•'. I'.' (3). We are familiar with its use in this sense.] WELSH MUTATIONS. — Mr. Charles O. Harper, in his delightful ' The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Road,' makes » curious slip, apparently owing to his igno- rance of the law of mutation of the initial consonant in Welsh, whereby c becomes ;/. and sometimes ch or ng. Speaking of Dafydd