Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/150

 120 NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 S.IX.A 6,1021. correctly speaking sportsmen use for a flight of wild geese ; and " swab," " swab-hook " (some- times " swap ") are regular in Sussex. The Supplement (which, like its predecessors, has some delicious little touches of humour) cannot be dispensed with by those who have the ' Contribu- tion ' and the first Supplement ; and Mr. Gepp's close and chronological use of the ' N.E.D.' for examples of words and usages tends to justify his claim that dialect speech is the preserver of classic English. To dialect and to classic English alike Mr. Gepp is rendering yeoman service. The Owl Sacred Pack of the Fox Indians. By Truman Michelson. (Smithsonian Institution : Bureau of American Ethnology ; Bulletin 72. Washington : Government Printing Office.) LINGUISTICALLY and ethnologically this book is of high value. Mr. Michelson prints the Indian text on the left hand page and his English transla- tion on the right hand ; and his linguistic notes on the text and other apparatus criticus are the work of a scholar. From the ethnological point of view the work has special claims to study. The pack itself is now in the Museum fur Volker- kunde, Berlin ; but Mr. Michelson's text is the narrative of its former owner, Alfred Kiyana, who knew not only the legend of its origin, but the ritual connected with it, its esoteric meaning and its traditional powers. The contents of the pack included the owl-skin, a tobacco-pipe, a flute, a fire-flint, and other ceremonial articles. Two children, Black Rainbow and his niece (sister's daughter) Deer -. Horn, had been chosen out in childhood by the Owl to be " blessed " ; and the pack and its contents (all except the flute) were given to them by a naked man in a lonely spot when, after a dedicated youth, they had grown up. The man also gave them full instructions about Fox dances in summer and in winter, about the use of the pack in war- fare, in medicine, and other fields of life. The lore thus handed down, with the words of the ritual, songs and many other minute details, were all remembered by Alfred Kiyana, and they form a valuable repository of Indian lore of many kinds. The narrative, too, is very charming and interesting ; and there are passages in which the nature of religion as understood by the Foxes is illuminated. A few good illustrations help to the understanding of the whole. The Quarterly Review for July includes a study by Dr. F.C. S. Schiller of William James, chiefly as seen in the two volumes of his letters edited by his son Henry. Dr. Schiller's account of James, his personality, and the difficult paths by which he won through from Spencerian natural- ism to his bracing religious faith (for so it must be called) makes an article of great interest and value. Mr. John Freeman points out well how, in restoring the English peasant to the English landscape, Mr. Maurice Hewlett's three volumes of poetry, ' The Song of the Plow,' ' The Village Wife's Lament,' and' ' Flowers in the Grass,' have achieved a singular triumph ; and his article is a sterling piece of criticism. Lord Haldane's ' The Reign of Relativity ' and Lord Bryce's ' Modern Democracies ' are the subjects of two judicious articles ; and there is a readable paper on sixteenth- century travels and dis- coveries. M. Elie Halevy's history of Chartism and Dr. Arthur Shadwell's masterly analysis of the coal strike are also to be noted. IN the August Cornhill Mr. J. H. Roberts analyses in lively style the names of London streets ; we should like to see more work from him in the same fruitful field. Sir Henry Lucy begins some more reminiscences under the title of ' From the Diary of a Journalist.' Dr. Bernard W. Henderson's tribute to George Macdonald as preacher will warm many a heart, and his memories of Henry Allon, Beecher, Gordon Calthrop and other preachers of the eighteen- eighties are good reading. Short stories by Mr. J. D. Beresford and Mr. George Blake, and Mr. Julian Huxley's charming Italian study, ' A Legend and some Peasants,' make up an attractive number. The Antiquaries' Journal for July (Oxford Uni- versity Press, 5s. net.) leads off with Sir Her- cules Read's presidential address on ' Museums in the Present and Future,' the gist of which may be familar to our readers from the daily papers. It deserves careful study in its complete form. Mr. C. R. Peers and Mr. Reginald A. Smith con- tribute an acute and careful account of Way- land's Smithy, near Ashbury, Berks ; the latter giving the history of the monument, and the former describing the excavations of 1919-20. Mr. Stanley Carson's paper on the Dorian Invasion in the light of some new evidence ; Mr. W. L. Hildburgh's on some English alabaster carving, and Mr. H. F. Westlake's note on the excavations by which he discovered the Misericorde of Westminster Abbey behind No. 20, Dean's Yard, are full of interest. THE Chief Librarian of the City of Birmingham Public Libraries sends us the catalogue of the unique collection of War Poetry presented to the Re- ference Library by an anonymous donor. The collection, while surprisingly large, is not com- plete ; and the Librarian asks for any information or help that would lead to the acquisition of such war poems as may be absent. Address, The Chief Librarian, Public Libraries, Ratcliff Place, Birmingham. JJotice* to Correspondent. ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to "The Pub- lishers" at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.C.4. When answering a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses' immediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor correspondents are requested to put in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of ' N. & Q.' to which the letter refers.