Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/525

 us. vii. JUNE 28, 1913. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

517

PROPOSED EMENDATION IN ASCHAM (11 S. vii. 445). As having some bearing on the subject under discussion, while not materially affecting the point at issue, reference may be made to the juncus artic- ulatiis, the Scottish " spratt " or " sprett." This is a jointed leaved rush, useful for fodder. Which grows on marshy ground, although not necessarily a water plant. That is, it is not inevitably associated with running or even with visible water, although there is usually abundance of moisture beneath the surface on which it appears. In this connexion readers of Burns will at once recall his famous song, ' Green grows the Rashes, O.' The poet likewise refers to the presence of spratts where little, if any, water may be supposed to affect their development. Thus he makes his farmer, saluting his old mare on New Year's morn- ing, recall how she pulled the plough through stiff places,

Till spritty knowes wad rair't and risket,

And sly-pet owre.

His meaning is that the earth, tangled with tough rooted plants, yielded to coulter and share and fell gently over.

THOMAS BAYNE.

SCOLOPENDRAS (11 S. vii. 347, 410). The fact that Pliny and many of his suc- cessors have described the marine scolopendra as a creature whose habit is,

" when she has swallowed a hook, to cast up all her guts within, xmtill she hath discharged her selfe of the said hooke, and then she suppeth them in again."

appears on the face of it to indicate a fabu- lous creature, as C. C. B. surmises. But on the supposition that Scolopendra marina is a worm of the family Nereidse, the state- ment is capable of a simple explanation. In the Nereids and other Polychaet Worms the anterior portion of the food canal con- sists of a well-developed buccal cavity suc- ceeded by a pharynx armed with strong, horny jaws. These parts are thrust forward and everted while the creature is feeding, so that the jaws, instead of being concealed within the body, as in a state of rest, project at its tip.

The seemingly unnatural eversion of the anterior of the food canal might readily be exaggerated into a " casting up of all her guts within " ; the more so as the phenome- non frequently succeeds any irritation to which the worm is subjected, as when it is being narcotized with weak alcohol.

Nereid worms, many of which live between tide-marks, must have been well known to

dwellers by the sea of earlier days, for some such as the " creeper " (Nereis virens), the white rag worm (Nephthys caeca), and Nereis ctdtrifera, the " esca " of the Neapolitans make excellent bait for cod, whiting, wrasse, bream, and other fishes. JAMES RITCHIE.

'CRITICAL REVIEW,' 1756 (11 S. vii. 389). According to ' The Alphabetical List of Sales,' by Walter S. Graves, in W. Y. Fletcher's ' English Book Collectors ' (1902), John Nichols's library was sold in three parts : by Sotheby in April and May, 1828, and by Sotheby & Wilkinson in July, 1856. In the same list will be found the dates at which the library of his son, John Bowyer Nichols, and that of his grandson, John Gough Nichols, were sold, viz., May and December, 1864, and December, 1874, and April, 1879. EDWARD BENSLY.

John Nichols's library was sold by Mr. Sotheby on 16 April, 1828, and the three following days, and realized 952Z.

A. R. BAYLEY.

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS : " THOTJ, : ' " THEE " (US. vii. 429). The use of " thou " and " thee " to a single person is still usual among the older Friends in the United Kingdom when speaking to one another, probably more so in the North of England than in the South. Among Friends in America, who outnumber those in this country by some six to one, it is, I believe, almost universal. Around Philadelphia it is almost de rigueur ; that is, no one would be considered a consistent Friend who said " you," even to a person not a Quaker ; and it is frequently heard among people who are not Friends, but are connected with them by descent or marriage. In America and Ireland it has usually assumed (why, I do not know) the ungrammatical form " thee has " ; in the South of England the equally ungrammatical " thee have " is not infrequent ; but in the North of England "thou" is, used, not only by Friends, but by " the working classes " generally when speaking familiarly to one another.

EDWARD GRUBB.

"HONEST" EPITAPH (11 S. vi. 308, 377). In Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin, Dub- lin :

The Catholic Cemeteries Committee

placed this memorial over the grave of

Honest Tom Steele.

MDCCCLXXV.

J. ARDAGH.