Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/519

 9* s. xn. DEC. 26, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

511

in 1878 : " A Great Mystery Solved. Being a Sequel to the Mystery of Edwin Drood. By Gillan Vase. London : Remington & Co." I commend a review of this daring book in the Examiner, 5 Oct., 1878, as excellent read- ing. JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

" EULACHON " AND ITS VARIANTS (9 th S. xii. 444, 491). I notice that MR. GILL quotes my spelling of the word oolackan in an article in the Fortnightly Revieiv (January, 1886), and I should like to mention that this was a misprint, as I was out of England at the time and did not correct final proofs. The word should have been written oolachan, and this spelling was used by me when passing for the press an interview by the then editor of the Wide World Magazine which was published in the second number of that periodical, pp. 119-20. I have likewise, if I am not much mistaken, used this form of spelling in my ' Fifteen Years' Sport and Life in the Hunting Grounds of Western America ' (Cox, 1900) ; but though I believed at the time that this was the more usual way of spelling the word, I would not for a moment set myself up as an authority against MR. GILL, and probably he is correct in saying that oulachan is the right way of speaking of the candle-fish.

W. A. BAILLIE-GROHMAN.

ASSES' MILK (9 th S. xii. 385). There is another place which was noted for the sale of asses' milk the Red House at Battersea, which in 1768 was kept by Mary Heidegger. Battersea Fields were then as disreputable a resort as the Five Fields, Pimlico, until the former's three hundred acres were transformed into Battersea Park. I have a curious and rare print of the Red House, Battersea, re- presenting Mother Heidegger serving beakers of asses' milk to aristocratic-looking cus- tomers. Mrs. Cornelys also, of Soho fame, when her sands were almost run and Carlisle House was no more, unsuccessfully tried her fortune at selling asses' milk at Knights- bridge, but sank lower and lower until she died in the Fleet Prison. Milch asses used to be kept for the sale of their milk, I think, in the nineties, in a small street off the Edgware Road. The advantages of asses' milk are sometimes said to be doubtful, but in 1836, according to the Athenaeum of 17 December in that year, a M. Peligot laid some interesting experiments before the French Academy of Sciences concerning its nutritive value. This gentleman was of opinion that the large quantity of sugar contained in the milk gives it the medical properties for which it is cele-

brated ; and he calculates that 100 parts of asses' milk will contain as follows : solid sub- stance, 9'53 ; butter, 1'29; sugar, 6'29; caseum, 1'95 ; water, 90'47. After trying various modes of nourishment, he found that beet- root made the milk richer in solid substance bhan any other food ; after this a mixture of [ucerne and oats, then potatoes, and lastly carrots. M. Peligot also succeeded in im- pregnating the milk with mineral substances or alkalis. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

[MR. MACMICHAEL has copied the figures cor- rectly, but there seems to have been a mistake in his authority.]

In a school bill, Christmas, 1771, occurred : To Wine, Syrrup, &c. (when ill) ... 1 6

To Asses Milk 159

To the Apothecary ... ... 10

Total of bill 16Z. 18s. 8d.I assume for half a year. R. J. FYNMORE.

CHILDREN'S CAROLS AND LULLABIES (9 th S. xii. 348, 395). S. J. A. F. will find what he is seeking in J. O. Halli well's ' Nursery Rhymes of England,' 1844, under the heading of 'Lullabies ' (the twelfth class, pp. 129-34). The first edition of the 'Nursery Rhymes' was printed for the Percy Society, and gives notes on their origin, &c. See also his ' Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales,' 1849 ; William Allingham's 'Rhymes for Young Folk'; S. J. FitzGerald's 'Nursery Rhymes and Children's Games,' in the Lady, beginning 15 Feb., 1900 ; and especially John Greenleaf Whittier's charming collection of children's poems entitled ' Child-Life ' (Nisbet, 1897). J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

" OWL -LIGHT" (9 th S. xi. 349, 411, 452). Equivalent expressions of " owl-light," mean- ing dusk, "between lights," are the French "entre chien et loup," and "blind man's holiday." As one of the resources of a blind man is the stick with which he feels his way, hence called a " blind man's lantern," so in the twilight, when it is too dark to work and too soon to light up, a blind man is no worse off than his fellows. "Joan is as good as my lady in the dark/' "In the dark all cats are grey." J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

Compare the French idiom " entre le chien et le loup," i.e., at dusk. "Then by wolfs light (entre chien et loup) a run on the Quai Voltaire" ('Life of Hippolyte Flandrin, by Mrs. Sidney Lear, p. 166).

Payen-Payne gives two interpretations : (1) When you might mistake a wolf for a dog ; (2) Between the time when the watch- dog is let loose and that when the wolf quits the wood ('French Idioms and Proverbs,' p 48). C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.