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Rh [An old jingle expressing the equality before the law of all members of the Polish gentry.]

[Maciej Stryjkowski (1547-83) wrote a famous chronicle that is one of the sources for the early history of Lithuania.

“Polish heraldry is comparatively simple beside that of other countries. The use of family names was unknown till the fifteenth century; before that the different branches of one stock were only recognised by one common escutcheon. One might belong to the stock of the arrow, the two daggers, the horseshoe, the double or triple cross, etc. There were only 540 of these escutcheons for the whole of Poland. A great number of families were grouped together under each one of these signs; we shall often find a man described as being of such and such a crest.”—M. A. Biggs.

“It may be added that a wealthy and powerful nobleman often rewarded his retainers and famuli by “admitting them to his escutcheon,” i.e. obtaining for them a diploma of honour from the King, ratifying the knightly adoption. Hence it is common to hear of the greatest and most ancient Polish families having the same armorial bearings with some very obscure ones.”—Naganowski. Compare p. 319.]

[See p. 334.]

[“The tarataika is species of capote; the czamara a long frock-coat, braided on the back and chest like a huzzar's uniform, and with tight sleeves. The sukmana is a sort of peasant's coat made of cloth, the wearing of which by Kosciuszko indicated his strong democratic tendencies, and sympathy with the lower classes.”—M. A. Biggs.]

The beaks of large birds of prey become more and more curved with advancing age, and finally the upper part grows so crooked that it closes the bill, and the bird must die of hunger. This popular belief has been accepted by some ornithologists.

It is a fact that there is no instance of the skeleton of a dead animal having been found.

Birdies (ptaszynki) are guns of small calibre, used with a small bullet. A good marksman with such a fowling-piece can hit a bird on the wing.

[“It may be interesting to know that one of the yet surviving friends and schoolfellows of Mickiewicz, Ignatius Domejko, the present Rector of the University of Santiago (Chili), related during his stay in Warsaw last year (1884) that he challenged the young poet, then at Wilno, to find a proper name riming with Domejko. Mickiewicz improvised a verse riming Domejko with Dowejko. It is not, however, quite certain whether there was actually a family of that name.”—Naganowski.]

Little leaves of gold lie at the bottom of bottles of Dantzic brandy. [The city, formerly under Polish rule, was annexed to Prussia at the time of the Second Partition, 1793.]