Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/164

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. XL FEB. 20, 1915.

to each volume of the printed edition. Cf. vol. Ivi., under the months of July to Septem- ber, 1532. There are also some meagre data to be found in ' La Pomposa Entrata ' (1532), Marco Guazzo's ' Historic ' (Venetia, 1540), Dr. Michele d'Ercole's book (Terlizzi, 1907), and others. L. L. K.

" WASTREL "= WASTE LAND (11 S. xi. 109). Quiller-Couch (" Q.") uses the ^word in connexion with waste land in his ' Ship of .Stars,' 1899. At p. 99 he says : "The chapel tood three-quarters of a mile away, on a turfed wastrel where two roads met and crossed"; and at p. 167, "the high wastrel in front of Tredennis great gates."

ARCHIBALD SPARKE, F.B.S.L.

Latham's ' Dictionary of the English t Language,' 1870, gives :

" Wastrel, s. Waste (as common, or uncultivated? land). Rare. Their works, both stream and load,'lie in several or in ivastrell, that is, in inclosed grounds or in commons. Carew, ' Survey of Corn-

wall.' "

B. A. POTTS.

OLD ETONIANS (US. xi. 29). (1) and (2) .The Hon. John Lewis, President and Chiei Justice of Jamaica, d. 17 Sept., 1820, age'd 70, and had a son John Goodin Lewis (' Monu- montal Inscriptions of the British West Indies,' by L. Archer, 338).

Suiininghill. V. L. OLIVER.

" LE PETIT Boi DE PRONNE " (11 S xi. 91). I have searched in vain, in manj likely sources, for any mention of this sobriquet. If it had been bestowed on -Louis XL, as at first sight seemed probable it could hardly have failed to be mentionec by Philip de Commines in his exhaustiv memoirs, or in Jean de Troyes's secret history of that monarch, known as the " Scandalous Chronicle." It might assis research if E. H. H. would tell us where allusion is made to the nickname.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

THE AYRTON LIGHT ON THE CLOCI TOWER AT WESTMINSTER (US. xi. 90). A light was placed on the Clock Tower ir 1872, when Mr. Ayrton was First Commis sioner of Works, to indicate when the Hous was sitting at night, and some of the M.P.' at that time named it " Ayrton's star." I was, however, only visible from the wester] part of London, and it was replaced in 189 by the present more powerful all-roun< light, which can be seen from all the point of vantage where the clock itself is visible.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

AUTHORS OF POEMS WANTED (11 S. xi. 89, 36). (3). J. G. S. is confusing two different oems. The first line of his quotation is a ransposition of the opening of the fourth rerse of ' The Memory of the Dead,' by the ate Prof. J. K. Ingram, which begins,

Who fears to speak of '98? he other line seems to be a vague recollec- ion of the concluding stanza of Thomas )avis's poem 'The Battle Eve of the Brigade ' : 'or in far foreign fields from Dunkirk to

Belgrade Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade.

Both are to be found in almost every Irish mthology.

EDITOR ' IRISH BOOK LOVER.'

STARLINGS TAUGHT TO SPEAK (11 S. xi. 68, 114). I would refer any inquirers on this subject to the late Dr. Norman VtacLeod's book 'The Starling' probably the best thing he ever wrote. The whole story hinges on the fact of the bird being able to speak a few sentences, and the author was not the man to have used such a device unless he knew that starlings ould be taught to speak, or rather repeat certain words and phrases.

The book is excellent reading, giving a capital picture of rural life in Scotland in the first half of last century. It is also full of good "broad Scotch " a thing not easy to find nowadays. T. F. D.

The naturalist Lenz kept one of these birds tame that could whistle two tunes and utter syllables. And we learn from Pepys, 1 March, 1668 :

"To Mrs. Martin's, and here I was mightily taken with a starling which she hath, that was the King's which he kept in his bedchamber, and do whistle and talk the most and best that ever I heard anything in my life."

But I am informed, respecting some of these birds kept in a cage at the present time, that the most they can do is to whistle, by which means they utter or modulate the sounds as they hear them in their attempts at mimicry. TOM JONES.

PERTHES-LES-HURLUS (US. xi. 90). The name signifies Perthes-ncar-Hurlus. Les should be spelt lez or les, an obsolete word meaning " near, by the side of," from the Latin latus. It is now only used in connexion with place-names, e.g., Plessis-lez- Tours. Hurlus is a larger village, about a mile S.E. from Perthes.

C. W. FlREBRACE.