Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/351

 a* s.v. APRIL 28, i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

343

He was one morning missed from his usua attendance at St. George's Chapel at Windso and, when the door of his house was broke open, he was found dead upon a pallet bee The house was "without furniture except table and a chair or two." G. E. WEAKE. Weston-super-Mare.

WISDOM FAMILY (9 th S. v. 230). Robei Wisdom, the author of a metrical praye against the Pope and the Turk, was Reck of Settrington, in Yorkshire, and collatec Archdeacon of Ely 20 February, 1559/60 ob. 20 September, 1568, and was buried a Wilberton (' N. & Q.,' 2 nd S. vii. 80).

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

"OUT OF PRINT" (9 th S. v. 124, 195). MP CHAS. F. FORSHAW evidently does not under stand the meaning of the phrase which h says is " generally understood." A book i " in print " so long as the publisher has copie unsold. When he has sold all the impression he says the book is "out of print." MR FORSHAW'S alternative expression "out o type" has quite a different meaning, anc would be still more confusing. Though a book is "out of print" and the type is dis tributed, it is not necessarily " out of type, for the publisher may have, and usually has the stereotype plates from which he is able to reprint. Where is the phrase "out of print " first met with ?

W. HAROLD MAXWELL.

DISCOVERIES OF CAPT. EDGE (9 th S. v. 209) MR. LAWSON will find an account of Edge's discoveries in Purchas's ' Pilgrimes,' vol. iii p. 467, under the title of 'English and Dutch Discoveries.' He was a factor of the " Muscovy Company " or " Russia Company," and sailed in 1611. See also Scoresby's ' Arctic Regions,' vol. ii. p. 20. THOS. A. MARTIN.

"BARNYARD" FOR " FARMYARD " (9 th S. iv. 419, 527). " What is the reason that barnyard has been adopted in the [United] States for our term farmyard ? " The answer is that the usage grew up out of the fact that many Americans have a barn and some land about it, and yet have no farm at all. Such owners are found in every village. The word barn- yard describes their actual holdings, while farmyard would not, for a farmyard is sur- rounded by farm buildings or is attached to them.

Dr. Murray's definition of barn would be better if he had added to it, as the ' Century Dictionary' does, that "in America barns usually contain stabling for horses and cattle." As a matter of fact village stables in New

England have been generally called " barns." The shorter of two alternative words will be sure to displace the longer. Portage, for instance, very soon ousted the old native English "carrying-place."

JAMES D. BUTLER. Madison, Wis., U.S.

THE PIGEON CURE (9 th S. v. 226). In the life of Mrs. Alice Thornton, 1627-1707, is recorded the last illness of her father, the Lord Deputy Wandesforde. He was dying of a broken heart, which the physicians called " a feaver." Shortly before his death, all other remedies having failed, "that night pigeons cut was laid to the soles of his feet, when my father smiled and said, 'Are you come to the last remedy ? but I shall prevent your skill " ' Autobiography of Alice Thornton,' p. 23 (Surtees Society publica- tions, 1875).

Stephens in his travels in Central America tells how a Catholic priest a friend of his when dangerously ill, had recently killed sheep one after another applied to his body. His recovery was supposed to be due to this remedy (Stephens's 'Incidents of Travel in Yucatan '). .FRANCESCA.

This is new to me, nor can I find any reference to it in any works on medicine or medical folk-lore I have in the house. The application of pigeons' dung to the feet was common enough in fevers and delirium down to Pepys's day and later, and was sanctioned by medical writers. Dr. Alleyne n his 'Dispensatory' (1733) defends the practice on the ground that if we

4 may judge of the nature of this [the dung] from ihat of the birds of which it is the produce, which >y the way is no ill rule, it certainly consists of ubtle hot parts, which open the pores where it is pplied, and by rarifying and expanding them, ccasion a greater flux of fluid that way."

C. C. B.

Salmon in his 'Pharmacopoeia Londinensis 1716), p. 200, says that a pigeon,

cut in the middle and laid to the feet, abates le heat of burning Fevers, though malignant, and o laid to the Head takes away Headaches, Frenzy, telancholy, and Madness."

W. E. WILSON.

Hawick.

See 'N. & Q.,' 7 th S. i. 49, 97, 198, at which eferences several additional seven teenth-cen- o the feet of sick folk will be found. Another xample occurs in Congreve's ' Love for jove,' IV. iii. (1695), where Valentine in his )retended frenzy exclaims, " Ha ! ha ! ha ! lat a man should have a stomach to a
 * ury instances of the practice of laying pigeons