Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/264

 258

NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. SEPT. 27, ma

abundant references. The fable in question' KOLfJLrfXos Kal Zevs, is 184 in C. Halm's seeing the bull pride itself on its horns, asked Zeus for horns, and Zeus in his anger deprived it of part of its ears. There is a line attri- buted to Publilius Syrus :
 * Fabulse JEsopicse Collects.' The camel,

Camelus cupiens cornua aures perdidit. Julian, ' Misopogon,' 366 A., has a similar story of the kite, that originally had a voice like other birds, and then, by trying to neigh like a thoroughbred horse, forgot its own note, and at the same time failed to acquire the sound it aimed at.

EDWARD BENSLY.

"WHISTLING OYSTER " (US. viii. 208,237). An interesting account of this tavern may be found in Edward Walford's ' Old and New London,' vol. iii. p. 283, with a picture of the house and the sign. See also ' London Stories,' edited by John o' London (T. C. & E. C. Jack), part iii. p. 181. There is a picture of the " Oyster " in ' The History of Signboards ' (by Jacob Larwood and John Camden Hotten ; Chatto & Windus, 1875), opposite ~ 224.

J. DE BERNIERE SMITH.

The proprietor of this shop had also a bar in the City some twenty-five years ago at " Deakrns' " restaurant in Finch Lane and Royal Exchange Avenue. I have swallowed many a "native " there. CECIL CLARKE.

" THE FIVE WOUNDS " : THE JANUS CROSS AT SHERBURN-IN-ELMET, YORKS (US. viii. 107, 176, 217, 236). Despite the photo- graph in Mr. Bogg's book mentioned ante, p. 217. the cross was in two distinct parts when I saw it but a few weeks ago.

ST. SWITHFN.

THOMAS BARNARD, BISHOP OF LIMERICK (11 S. viii. 189). The following extract from a work entitled ' The Barnards,' 8vo, Londonderry, 1897, supplements the meagre notice in the ' D.N.B.,' and may prove helpful to G. F. R. B. :

" In June, 1752, the Bishop's elder son Thomas Barnard was collated to the rectories of Maghera and Killelagh, Diocese of Derry. He had, like his father, been educated at Westminster, and was admitted a King's Scholar at the age of 13. He proceeded from thence to Oxford, where he graduated. He also proceeded M.A. (ad eundem]

in. the University of Dublin 1750 It must have

been shortly after his ordination that he was presented to the living of Maghera." P. 15.

" He was born at Esher in 1728." P. 7.

EDITOR ' IRISH BOOK LOVER.'

Kensal Lodge, N.W. "

Fabre, Poet of Science. By C. V. Legros. With a Preface by J. H. Fabre. Translated by Bernard Miall. (Fisher Fnwin.)

THIS Life has been given to the world by Dr, Legros with the authority of M. Fabre himself, as the Preface testifies. It will, therefore, always have to be taken into account in any future lives of this most distinguished man of science, It cannot, however, itself be pronounced specially satisfactory. Alike as a biography, as a history of achievement, and as a description of methods of work it lacks precision. It is padded out with commonplaces and with eulogy not entirely free from fulsomeness. Repetitions occur fre- quently, and in the selection of examples of Fabre's wonderful discoveries in the realm of insect life it has not been sufficiently allowed for that the histories of Cerceris and Ammophila and Scarabceus sacer have already astonished and delighted most lovers of natural history, and hardly need to be told at length and that more or less twice over here. A workmanlike survey in outline of all that Fabre has done, and the choice of some less well-known illustrations, with one or two solid quotations, to give those who do not yet know it a taste of his quality, would have been worth ail this rather frothy, orna- mental, disconnected sort of description. In the same way a more methodical use of dates, and the presentment of facts simply and in strict order, would have rendered the biographical part of the book more interesting. In a laudable endeavour not to be " dry," Dr. Legros has in many places become vapid.

Fabre's life in itself is of those for which man- kind has reason to be grateful. It is good to think that he has been spared to the world long enough to see his work recognized for what it is. The Darwinian explanation of evolution which he had been unable to accept tended, while it held the field, to obscure, even to cast some measure of ridicule or distrust upon, the results obtained by men of science who held aloof from it. Now that it begins to appear antiquated and insufficient, the harvest gathered by independent observers commands all the more eager attention. Nor is it merely as an entomologist, a biologist even, that Fabre in particular attracts a just admiration. To an all-round aptitude for science, which included also the mathematical faculty, he added the insight and enthusiasm of the poet, and that freshness, sympathy, and skill in exposi- tion which are gifts of the born teacher ; with these, again, were linked a firm, robust indifference to worldly conventions and worldly gain, and a hermit-like power of intense concentration. Surrounded only by his nearest family, he has lived for the most part the life of a solitary, applying himself to Nature rather than to books, refusing society and even correspondence.

Dr. Legros, who has had the advantage of a good deal of personal intercourse with him, gives us a clear idea of many of Fabre's ways and likings. Thus he describes him studying the spawning of the blue-bottle, so oblivious of everything but that upon which he was intent that he did not perceive the frightful odours of the putrefying meat before him ; and notes the