Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/39

us. VIIL JULY 12, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES. (11 S. vii. 450; viii. 16).—At none of the references given in the Editorial note is this query answered, nor is it possible to give any definite answer without seeing the particular horn referred to. As Sir Thomas Browne says, "There be many Unicornes"—some fabulous, some real. There can, however, be little doubt that the unicorn's horn used in medicine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the horn of the narwhal. Pomet, writing in 1694, says that in his time this was so; our Alleyne, in 1733, is less definite. His words are:—

"This is a great fish found in Davis's Streights. It has two great tusks like those of an Elephant and of the same nature What is commonly sold for Unicorn's horn is nothing else but bones of Whales, Sea Horses, or Elephants, which are brought by art into that shape."

The two-horned "fish" he describes is apparently itself the sea-horse, or walrus. The sea-unicorn, or narwhal, is, however, as Sir Thomas Browne says, that with which contemporary descriptions of unicorn's horn best agree, though some of the older and more famous examples are thought by the same writer to be the horns of the "Indian Asse." As much as 20,000l. of our present money is said to have been given for a unicorn's horn in France in 1553; another, at Dresden, was valued at 75,000 thalers. In spite of the uncertainty of its origin, the unicorn's horn kept its place in our London pharmacopoeia until 1746. It was a favourite sign with the old apothecaries, on account of its supposed alexipharmic properties.

COLLEGES : MATRICULATION AND GRADUA- TION (11 S. vii. 409, 474). The inquiry as to migration from one college to another points to some interesting distinctions between older times and our own. Nowadays a student is much in the habit of choosing a college for himself. He selects what he thinks is a " nice " college one where his school- fellows are to be found, or where the boat is high on the river, or where there is some other such social inducement. This being so, he seldom finds reasons for quitting his college.

In old times the bulk of the poorer stu- dents scholars and sizars were determined in their choice by pecuniary reasons. The fellowships and scholarships which were far more numerous, relatively, than is now the casewere, for the most 'part, confined to certain counties or districts. Of course parents and guardians (the boys themselves were mostly too young to exercise a choice)

took this into account, with the result that certain colleges were fed, to a preponderating extent, from certain districts. But after a few terms of residence a student would often find that his prospects had changed. He discovered, perhaps, that the fellowships- open to one of his county were already filled up, but that he had a good chance else- where. Or he found on subsequent inquiry that some scholarship or sizarship for which he was qualified was to be had at another college. These considerations prevailed till 1 comparatively recent times. For instance,. Mackenzie, the well-known bishop in Central- Africa, entered at St. John's. He found, before long, that his prospects in the Tripos- he was second to Todhunter in 1848 were certain to secure a fellowship elsewherey but that, as a Scotchman, he was precluded from one at his own college. Accordingly he migrated, before graduation, to Caius.

We have here, I am convinced, the" principal cause for migration. But other reasons existed. For instance, in Eliza- bethan times religious considerations were powerful. Many a youth found after some- experience that the prevalence of Puritanism or Romanism, as the case might be, damaged his prospects at his own college. Sometimes, too, a popular tutor changed his college, and took his pupils with him. When Dr. Legge was brought to Caius he half emptied his own college, Jesus. J. VENN.

Caius College.

EWING OF IRELAND (11 S. vii. 387). In his search has MR. EWING looked under Euene and Ewen, for it appears the name was thus variously rendered ?

In my collection of book-plates I have the late eighteenth-century plate of one William Ewing. The arms are : Arg. a chev. embattled az. ensigned on the top, with a flag gu. between two mullets in chief, and a sun in base (no tinctures for the mullets and sun are given). Crest : a demi- lion holding a mullet (no tincture). Motto,. " Audaciter."

Can MR. EWING identify this Wm. Ewing ? CHAS. HALL CROUCH.

62, Nelson Road, Stroud Green, N.

THE ALCHEMIST'S APE (11 S. vii. 110 r 157, 211). According to Kitamura's ' Kiyu Shoran,' 1830, torn. ii. pt. ii., in the seven- teenth century there was in a suburb of Kyoto a renowned wholesale dealer in toothpicks, whose shop had an ape for its sign, and was therefore called Saruya (Ape's-house). Following this, it became.