Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/141

 LI s. iv. A. 12, i9ii.] NO TES AND QUERIES.

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sometimes stated ; on the contrary, he calls it in'his ' Commentaries on Galen ' a " most ancient instrument " (p. 538, ed. 1612).

In reference to Galilei it may be mentioned that his inscription in the album of Ernest Brinck is noticed at 2 S. v. 44.

Jean Hey in a letter written to Father Marsenne, 1 January, 1632, said :

" I observe there are divers kinds of thermo- ^scopes ou thermometres ; what you tell me does not agree with mine, which is merely a small round flask having a very long slender neck," Ac. Quoted in French by Burckhardt, ' Zur Geschichte des Thermometers,' 1902.

The earliest use I have found of the word in a title is in the work by Dalence, ' Traittez des barometres, thermometres et notiometres ou hygrometres,' Amsterdam, 1688.

TOM JONES.

MILKY WAY : ITS VARIOUS NAMES (11 S. lii. 406). One of the Welsh names for the Milky Way is Caer Gwydion=the fortress of Gwydion. Gwydion was the son of the goddess Don, and brother of Arianrod. In the Triads he is one of the three astronomers of Wales. The family of Don seem to have faeen all connected with the sky : the aurora toorealis was called Caer Arianrod.

C. C. B.

CUCKOO RIMES : HEATHFIELD CUCKOO
 * FAIR (11 S. iii. 465; iv. 31, 96). MB.

VAUGHAN GOWER testifies as to East Sussex cuckoo-lore. That of West Sussex is set forth in some notes on the superstitions of that side of the county which Mrs. Latham contributed to the first volume of The Folk-lore Record, published in 1878 (p. 17) :

" There is a childish" legend current with us, if not popularly believed, that a certain old woman of irascible temper has charge of all the cuckoos, and that in spring she fills her apron with them, and, if she is in a good humour, allows several to take flight, but only permits one or two to escape if anything has happened to sour her temper. This spring a woman of the village complained quite pathetically of the bad humour of the cuckoo-keeper, who had only let one bird fly out of her apron, and ' that 'ere bird is nothing to call a singer.' Some of us think that at a cer- tain period the cuckoo changes into a hawk."

It is curious that another Sussex belief is registered in Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld's ' Tra- ditions et Legendes,' t. i. p. 255, a work with which I have no personal acquaintance :

" Le 14 avril en Belgique donnait lieu autre- fois a une ce're'monie mystique, qui en d'autres localites n'avait lieu que le 24 avril et qu'on ^ppelait ' koekoekfeest ' parce que ce jour le coucou proph^tisait 1'avenir. En Sussex, en Angleterre, ce jour s'appelle encore aujourd'hui first cuckoo day.' "

As far as I have ascertained, the folk of this land alone have commemorated in a jingle the cuckoo's change of note. That says something for their observation.

ST. SWITHIN.

THE CUCKOO AND ITS CALL, (11 S. iii. 486 ; iv. 30, 75, 96). The curious "bubbling" crj of the female cuckoo to my ear suggests laughter, and is somewhat akin to the laughing note of Turtur Senegalensis, the laughing dove.

In reply to D. K. T. I may say that in April, 1903, 1 heard a male cuckoo call in the Mogok valley in Upper Burma, about five thousand feet above sea-level.

DONALD GUNN.

GRAY'S ' ELEGY ' : TRANSLATIONS AND PARODIES (11 S. iii. 62, 144, 204, 338 ; iv. 90). Gilbert Wakefield's version appears to have been issued several times, but it first appeared in 1776, in another form than that mentioned by PROF. BENSLY, namely, in a handsomely printed quarto volume of 85 pages entitled " Poemata Latine Partim Scripta, Partim Reddita . . . .aGilberto Wake- field A.B. et Coll. Jesu apud Cantab. Socio ; Cantabrigise ; typis Academicis excudit J. Archdeacon. 1776." My own copy of this work was bought of Mr. Nutt in 1898, in its original paper wrapper, clean and uncut, as if it were a " remainder " ; and I should not be surprised if Mr. JSTutt still had copies.

Wakefield's version is certainly school- boyish, and may deserve all Munro's strictures ; but it is fair to remember (what Munro apparently never realized) that Wakefield, though "a Fellow of his college, was only 20 when it was published.

Munro's version was privately circulated in 1874, more as a typographical experiment than anything else ; it was in violet-paper covers, and the pentameters were not in- dented. The heading was as follows : " Incipit Thomse Grai Cantabrigiensis ele- gorum liber in sepulcreto quodam rustico conscriptus Anglice mine autem ab H. A. I. Munro T. C. A. et ipso Cantabrigiensi Nasonianis numeris Latine redditus. 1874." The colophon ran : " Thomse Grai Canta- brigiensis elegorum liber explicit feliciter." Copies are probably extremely rare.

C. W. BRODRIBB.

In col. 2, p. 91, line 6, for " paritesque " read pariterque ; and in line 15 for " tremes- centes " read tremiscentes.

J. R. MAGRATH.