Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/179

 ii s. viii. AUG. so, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tailors, for our friend Aaron being, as we have already had occasion to notice, in the interests of Drury Lane Theatre, was too well pleased at any mortification which might attend another booth in the fair ; and with the exception, therefore, of the desperate little mechanic con- victed of sheer malice against Dowton, the whole party were dismissed. Thus terminated this thimble emeute. The tailors claimed the victory, and, quitting the play-house, were content for the future to appear on no other boards than their own."

W. B. H.

EXTRACTING SNAKES FROM HOLES (11 S. viii. 85). MR. KTJMAGUSTJ MINAKATA'S note reminds me of a story which I heard long ago in India, and for the absolute accuracy of which I will not vouch. In that country, as every one knows, the bathrooms are generally built on the ground-floor, and there is a hole in the wall for the.outlet of the water. An Anglo -Indian one day, when taking his bath, observed a snake enter by this hole and make a reconnaissance of the room. He was too much surprised to do anything, but on the following day, on seeing the snake return, he waited until it was making its exit, and then seized it by the tail. The snake, however, wriggled, and as the bather probably neglected to grasp his left ear with the other hand, it managed to slither away. On the third day it again returned ; but on preparing to depart it inserted its tail into the hole, and facing the astonished bather with a stern, if not a pained expres- sion in its eyes, it slowly backed into the garden behind. Having thus justified its reputation for wisdom, the serpent gracefully refrained from further troubling the ablu- tions of the owner of the bungalow.

W. F. PRIDEATJX.

MR. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA suggests that it is impossible for a Japanese to pull a snake out of a hole by the tail. When in India some twenty years ago I saw the feat accomplished single-handed by an English- man. We afterwards measured the snake, and found him to be nearly 8 ft. long.

C. W. FlREBRACE.

SOME IRISH FAMILY HISTORIES (US. . 483 ; viii. 124). Please add the following : Some Account of the Palmer Family of Rahan,

co. Kildare. By Temple Prime. New York,

1903.

A Collection concerning the Family of Yarner of Wicklow. By J. C. H. Privately printed,

The author of the latter work was Col. John Colpoys Haughton. It was " privately printed " in the truest sense, being set up

and bound by an amateur. There is a copy in the British Museum. The founder of the short-lived Yarner family was Sir Abraham Yarner, a celebrated Dublin physician, and Muster - Master General of Ireland from October, 1661. His daughter Jane married Sir John Temple of East Sheen, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and brother of the more celebrated Sir William Temple. Their son Henry was created Baron Temple , and later Viscount Palmerston. A daughter Jane married, first, John, Baron Berkeley of Stratton, and, secondly, the first Earl of Portland, the ancestor of the present Duke. A daughter Frances married another Lord Berkeley of Stratton. H. G. ARCHER.

For families connected with co. Kerry, I should like to call attention to Parts III., IV., and VI., price 6d. each, of King's ' History of Co. Kerry,' published by Eason & Sons, Dublin, to which I contributed some account of the Moriarty and Trant families. Part III. gives Bernard, Denny, Fuller, Ginnis, McCarthy, Moriarty, O'Halloran, Stokes, more or less in detail, and short notices of many others. Part IV. gives Eagar and Trant. Part VI. gives a long account of the O'Sullivans. All these are now being revised, and many others added, for publication in the Kerry papers, and will, we hope, later be collected into a book, together with all the other interesting records of the county contained in these little compilations. L. E. MORIARTY.

" EOWESTRE " : " YOUSTERS " (11 S. viiL 107). As the name denotes, there are two " Yousters " in the Isle of Axholme, the near and the far. In old documents the name appears as Ewester, and Streatfeild (' Lincolnshire and the Danes ') gives it as an instance of the occurrence in Lincolnshire of the Norse suffix -ster (setr). Mr. T. B. F. Eminson, in a paper in The Antiquary of November or December, 1912, states that there was no hamlet here until (probably) the fourteenth century, in which case it cannot have been a Norse settlement. He explains the name Ewester as originally that of the mile-long reach of the Trent here, into which the River Eye runs at its middle point. Early spellings of this river's name, he says, include such forms as " Aa," " Aye," " Yea ," " Eau," &c., and he adds :

" Ewester appears to be derived from Eye't, Peach, the ' y becoming ' w,' and ' t ' being added to the contraction ' re,' as in ' Scottre,* forming ' E west re ' or ' Ewester.' The name is therefore of Anglian derivation."