Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/31

 9< s. viii. JULY 6, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

into a different class, i.e., Rhamphastidse ; but in so doing did they also cancel the every-day name toucan and assign them another ? I fancy not. I think that it must be the American bird which is " improperly " termed a toucan, and that the error arose in the way above suggested. It is no use, there- fore, to hunt for an explanation of the word " toucan " in Brazilian vocabularies. The word has been by error appropriated from the Malays through European agency. The Malays call the hornbill a toucan for the following reason. Every workman is a "tou- can " in the Malay language e.g., a carpenter is a " toucan cayu," or worker in wood ; a blacksmith a "toucan brisi," or worker in iron ; a goldsmith a " toucan mas," or worker in gold ; and so on. Now the hornbill, like the woodpecker, may be seen and heard hammering the bark of trees with his huge beak, and so the Malay, comparing him to a workman, calls him a " toucan."

H. G. K.

KNIFEBOARD OF AN OMNIBUS (9 th S. vii. 487). I believe this word was applied, not to the seat itself, nor even to the back of the seat, but to the board on each side of the roof, whence it came to mean the outside of the omnibus as distinct from the inside. The advertise- ment board was thus named, it is thought, because of a fancied resemblance to the domestic knifeboard, the part where the conductor stood being known as the monkey- board : " Here comes the Paddington omnibus.

You will not fail to observe that the

knifeboard has not yet been invented " (W. Besant, 4 Fifty Years Ago,' p. 55). Possibly some playful allusion to smartness was in- tended, for there was a similar phrase once current, "You've been in the knife-box," meaning " You are very sharp, or clever," ,&c., " You will fall and cut yourself."

J. H. MACMlCHAEL.

My recollection goes back to 1856 or 1857, when, as MR. WHITWELL says, there was not even an iron ladder up to the roof. Iron steps were attached to the end of the omnibus, by which one climbed up. As far as I remem- ber, the seats were back to back. They con- sisted of plain wooden boards like the knife- boards then in use hence the name. The knifeboard of the present day, with its special surface and prepared emery powder, was then unknown, and a plain board with powdered Bath brick was the domestic imple- ment in common use. E. E. STREET.

Chichester.

The 'Slang Dictionary' describes this to be the seat running along the roof of an

omnibus, and gives the following illustration for its use :

On 'busses' knifeboards stretch'd, The City clerks all tongue -protruded lay.

' A Summer Idyll/ by Arthur Smith.

The same meaning and quotation have been adopted by Annandale in his ' Imperial Dic- tionary.'

The first omnibus in London ran from Paddington to the Bank on 4 July, 1829, and accommodated twenty-two inside passengers, who were granted the free use of newspapers to beguile the time occupied in their tedious journey. No outside passengers were carried, and the knifeboard was a thing of very much later construction. Soon after the intro- duction of the omnibus the Post Office started four from St. Martin's-le-Grand. Two went through the Strand, and the others down Hoi born. These were for the sole use of the red-coated " general postmen," with a view to the acceleration of the delivery of the country letters. If I remember rightly, the seat on which the outside passengers sat back to back was raised about a foot from the roof, with an arrangement underneath of perforated zinc netting for ventilation. In later years the knifeboard was converted into garden-seats.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON (9 th S. vii. 466). In reference to CANON TAYLOR'S re- marks on this myth, may I, though only a learner, suggest that to find the origin of the legend we should go to the signs of the zodiac, with the nature and characteristics of which the Babylonians, like all ancient nations, were well acquainted? In the " sun-god of ancient Babylon " it is probable we only find the shadow, and to grasp the substance we must, I think, endeavour to understand the mean- ing of the signs and constellations. The latter, with which so many of the myths are connected, no doubt (as Miss Rolleston has shown) shadow forth the mediatorial work of the " Sun of Righteousness "; and in the signs Scorpio and Sagittarius combined we may, I believe, see the origin of St. George and the dragon. In Gen. xlix. 17 Jacob pictures the Scorpio serpent assaulting the Sagittarian rider (the Messiah) ; but in the end the dragon's head is bruised and the captive set free. In Rev. xix. we see the conqueror on a white horse (Pegasus). His name is written on His thigh, which, astrologically, again connects Him with the Archer.

Scorpio was anciently represented as an eagle bearing aloft an adder in its talons, and