Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/173

 12 s. ix. AUG. is, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 139 Valera, born at Cuenca, 1412 ; d. about 1482 " ? That would be to the purpose. The proved line of descent and the names and occupations of his near progenitors are what is needed to clinch the matter. From the middle of the fifteenth century to the present day leaves a long gap. It is this gap that I am endeavouring to bridge. W. DEL COURT. 47, Blenheim Cresent, W.ll. WAR PORTENTS (12 S. yiii. 329, 375). As the Germans are said to do with the silk -tails, so the Chinese believed anciently in the Pallas sand-grouse (Syrraptes paradoxus Pallas), foretelling by their southerly arrival in multitudes the irrup- tion of the Tuh-Kiueh horde, whence its names " Tuh-Kiueh-tsioh " (literally, Turk's sparrow) and " Kau-chi " (literally, Intruder's pheasant (Li Shi-Chin, ' System of Materia Medica,' 1578, xlviii.). It is figured in Yule's ' The Book of Ser Marco Polo,' 1871, vol. i., p. 240, and the ' Cambridge Natural History,' 1909, vol. ix., p. 323. Several instances of its irruptions into Europe, Great Britain and Ireland included, are given in the latter work. KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan. EPITAPHS DESIRED (12 S. viii. 211 ; ix. 59). In the churchyard of Bolsover, Derby- shire, is an epitaph which is an abbreviated version of that to Geo. Routleigh : Here lies in a horizontal position the outside case of THOMAS HINDE Clock and Watchmaker who departed this life Wound up in hope of being taken in hand by his Maker and being thoroughly cleaned Repaired and set agoing in the World to come on the 15th of Aug. 1830 in the 19th year of his age. V. B. CROWTHER-BEYNON. on A History of Pisa : Eleventh and Twelfth Cen- turies. By William Heywood. (Cambridge University Press, 21s. net.) IN William Heywood, who died just over two years ago, the world nas lost a fine scholar and an extraordinary man. E. H., in a biographical note prefixed to this, his posthumous work, gives a few particulars of his varied life as lawyer, cow-puncher, magistrate, and historian. And those who know his previous w T orks on medieval Italy ' A Pictorial Chronicle of Siena,' ' Palio andPonte,' and the ' History of Perugia'- will be aware how well he combined the patience and minuteness of the investigator with full-blooded, almost romantic, love of the beauty, natural and artistic, of the Italy where he passed the last years of his eventful and enterprising life. As historian, his special gift, perhaps, was his power of taking his course clearly through a tangle of facts and influences. And no gift is more valuable to a historian of medieval Italy. The story of Pisa, from the very early days (before the Trojan War 1) when she was founded on the seashore, is fairly plain sailing through the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when her chief task was the harrying of the Paynims, and their removal, step by step, from Sardinia, from Sicily and from the Balearic Isles. Quarrels with Genoa and other Italian centres were not wanting in those early days ; but with Mr. Hey- wood's eighth chapter we are plunged " into the vortex " of Italian strife, and very soon, with the advent of the struggle between Guelf and Ghibel- line, political trouble joins with old commercial rivalry to complicate the history of all Italian states, and that of Pisa no less than the others. Mr. Heywood carries the history down to 1406, when this gallant, sea-loving, independent people fell into the hands of Florence. " She regained her independence," writes Mr. Heywood, " in 1494, and, between 1499 and 1505, withstood three sieges and repulsed three attacking armies. Of these things I hope to write hereafter, if I shall so long live." Students of medieval Italy and all who care for the welfare of the science and art of history must regret that death should have Prevented the fulfilment of that task by the man est equipped of all living historians both in learning and in literary power to do it well. The book is beautifully illustrated with photo- graphs of pertinent pictures and other works of art in Pisa (the Campanile, of course, is not forgotten) ; and there is a useful map of Pisa and Tuscany and a good bibliographical appendix. Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. By Jane Ellen Harrison. (Cambridge University Press, 3s. Qd. net.) THIS very interesting little book winds up, for the present, those studies in Greek religion which began with Miss Harrison's ' Prolegomena ' and went on in ' Themis.' Headers of those books, who are many, will know that Miss Harrison studies Greek religion in the light of ethnology and folk-lore, and also in the light thrown on the human mind by recent studies in psychology. The special object of the new book is to sum up, to begin with, the primitive ritual by which men tried to ensure fertility in man, beast and field, and to lead us on through stages of religious development until we come to religion as we know it to-day. In the section on Primitive Ritual there are four headings : one explaining totem, tabu and exogamy; the second dealing with initiation ceremonies ; the third with the Medicine- Man and the King-God ; and the fourth with the fertility play or Year-drama. Of the four, the weakest is that concerning the Medicine-Man