Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/119

 vii. FEB. 9, HOI.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

Ill

voking habit of intruding it where it was no wanted : " Chommoda dicebant," &c. Here however, there is no question of pronuncia tion, as in Catullus's epigram ; but in thi* connexion I take occasion to observe thai the accentuation I have been used to all my life is Leghorn' that of the etymology not Leg'horn, which aggravates the corruption.

F. ADAMS.

H. G. H. may be glad to know of a note ol mine on this subject, 9 th S. iii. 484. After writing it I found that the late Alex. J. Ellis had treated the matter most exhaustively in his great work the ' History of Early English Pronunciation,' 1869. He quotes the same authority as I did, Rear- Admiral Smyth, to show that the English form of this name was derived from Greek and Italian spellings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Greek Legorno, Italian Ligorno, &c.

J. PL ATT, Jun.

POEM BY THE LATE DR. E. HATCH (9 th S. vii. 29). The line

Saints of the marts and busy streets is found in a poem called 'All Saints, printed in a collection of sacred poems entitled 'Towards Fields of Light,' by the llev. Edwin Hatch, D.D., published by Hodder & Stoughton, 1890, p. 54.

A. L. MAYHEW.

"INSURRECTION" (9 th S. vii. 66). Comman- dant Weil informs us that Frederick II. writes in French of " les insurges hongrois " for the general rising of Hungary on the side of the Crown. EDITOR.

MARGARET OF BOURBON (9 th S. vi. 289 397' 492). MEGAN will doubtless have noticed the mistake ante, p. 55. At that place the heading should read Bourbon, not " Bavaria," with references as above. C. S. WARD.

HORSES WITH FOUR WHITE STOCKINGS TOLL- FREE (9 th S. vi. 507). Your correspondent's query has suggested reference to some notes made for me many years since in India by Capt. W. Lee regarding the native view of marks on horses. I find that the panch kalian, or horse with five white points, a white face and four white stockings, the sort of horse good for a circus, is highly prized in India !

The following notes on the propitious and unpropitious marks may be of interest. These go very far, in the native mind, in the selection of a horse; and at a fair a European, who looks to other points, may often pick up a good horse cheap, which no native will bid for on account of its unlucky markings.

One of the most important is the feather, or curl, to be found on the side of a horse's neck near the mane, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. If this, the khaumri, points forwards, i.e., towards the head, this is a horse to buy. But a feather pointing to- wards the tail is a sampan, or female snake, and this constitutes about as bad an aib, or blemish, as a horse can possess.

A forward curl on one side cancels a sampan on the other, and the horse will do. Two forward curls, one on each side, send up the value hugely, whilst no native will think of buying a horse which has developed two sampans.

Of all the propitious markings, the deo- kunth ranks the highest. This is a curl sometimes found at the bottom of the throat, near the chest. If this "god -like throat" mark exists, it cancels most of the other blemishes, even a couple of sampans.

The most serious of all blemishes is the siyah talu, or black roof to the mouth, and with this even the deo-kunth will hardly help the horse through.

Another fatal aib is a small star on the forehead of the horse. Its fatality depends on whether it is small enough to be covered by the ball of a man's thumb. If it is of fair size and cannot be so covered, it has little evil significance ; but if it is diminutive, the horse is almost valueless for the native market.

Colours count for something. In Arabs, a blue grey, which as time goes on gets bleached white, ranks highest ; then bay with black points. Chestnut comes last, horses of this colour being generally supposed to be tiresome and vicious.

J. H. RIVETT-CARNAC, Colonel. Schloss Wildeck.

The following well-known sayings seem to against rather than in favour of a horse with four white stockings :

One white leg, buy a horse ; Two white legs, try a horse ; Three white legs, look about him ; Four white legs, do without him.

Four white legs, keep him not a day ; Three white legs, send him soon away ; Two white legs, sell him to your friend ; One white leg, keep him to his end.

STAPLETON MARTIN. The Firs, Norton, Worcester.

According to the following passage from Li Carretie,' by Fre'deric Mistral, the Pro- 'engal poet, the freedom was not only of tolls,

but of the rule of the road : "Per la reglo dou trin, i'ayi6 pamens un viei

usage, qu'ero respeta de touti: lou carreti6 que