Jan. 1, 1S70.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



21 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Admiral or Admirable.— In your answer to 

 your correspondent " M. M. S." on the meaning of 

 the word admiral, I would say that if he refers to 

 the "[Penny Cyclopaedia " he will find that " it is a 

 corruption of the Arabic amir or emir, a lord or 

 chief, the ' aV being only the definite article the. 

 Eutychus, Patriarch of Alexandria in the 10th 

 century, calls the Caliph Omar Amirol Mumenim, 

 which he translates Tmperator Fidelium (Commander 

 of the Faithful). Milton writes— 



' The mast 

 Of some great ammiral.' 



'The Prench write antral — Italians, ammiraglio- 

 The 'd' seems to have got into the English word 

 from a notion that admiial was an abridgment of 

 admirable. The Latin writers^ of the middle ages 

 sometimes, apparently from this conceit, style the 

 commmander of a fleet admirabilis and admiratus." — 

 C. S. B. Q., Eaglesbush, Neath. 



Potatoes. — In Goldsmith's " Citizen of the 

 World," letter cxxiii., the Chinaman, Honan, writes, 

 "Prom Pangrace (Pancras) to Kentish Town, the 

 road lies through afine champaign country, well 

 watered with beautiful drains, and enamelled with 

 flowers of all kinds." Subsequently he says, "Per- 

 ceiving night approach, I made a hasty repast on 

 roasted mutton and a certain dried fruit called pota- 

 toes." Can any of the readers of Science-Gossip 

 furnish additional information respecting the prepa- 

 ration of this dried fruit ? — R. T., M.A. 



"Hoddy-doddy" (vol. iv., pp. 140 and 164). — 

 Wright's " Dictionary of Obsolete Provincial Eng- 

 lish " (Bonn's series) gives the following : — Doddy, 

 small, East ; Doddy-pate, blockhead^ hoddy-doddy, 

 hoddy-pette, hoddy-poule, a weak, foolish fellow; 

 and again, hoddy-doddy (1) sub., a revolving light, 

 Devon; (2) adj., disproportionably stout. This is 

 all the information 1 nave been able to extract from 

 dictionaries. Possibly doddy may be connected 

 with dowdy, and hoddy with hode, i.e. hood. There 

 is a good passage in Latimer's Seven Sermons, before 

 Edward VI. (p. 84, Arber's Reprint), " What, ye 

 brainsycke fooles, ye hoddy-peckes, ye doddye- 

 poulles, ye huddes, do ye beleve hym ? are you 

 seduced also ? " I may remark that the epithet I 

 have heard bestowed upon the snail is "Horny 

 dorney," and a similar doggerel to that given with 

 "hoddy-doddy" tacked on, which has escaped my 

 memory.— R. T., M.J. 



The Sacrificial StoiNE.— The habit of black- 

 birds and thrushes resorting to a good-sized stone to 

 crack the shells of snails upon, has often appeared to 

 me noteworthy and interesting : a fact, though 

 perhaps well known to naturalists and dwellers in 

 the country, may be new and curious to town-folks. 

 Many a time, by a hedge-side or a retired nook in a 

 green lane, have I heard the tap, tap, of the 

 operators at work, and, on walking up to the anvil 

 of this hammering, have been surprised to see the 

 number of broken pieces of shattered shells that lay 

 scattered about it ! Surely this act of the birds 

 partakes more of reason than instinct, suggesting 

 the question, Could we do more ?— W. B., Fowey. 



An Odd Place for a Humble -Bee's Nest. — 

 Our country butcher being for a long time annoyed 

 in his shop with humble-bees, was at a loss to find 



out where they all came from. His shop is a wooden 

 erection, having a broad running beam at the top of 

 the wall to support the roof. The windows are open 

 in summer and the aperture covered with hexagon 

 wire netting. On carefully searching the premises, 

 he discovered on the top of this beam, at the foot 

 of a rafter, a thriving colony of humble-bees, snugly 

 ensconced among the wool in a sheep's tail which he 

 had cut off and thrown there some time in the 

 spring. At my request the butcher promised to 

 preserve it, but Unfortunately when I next went to 

 see it, I learned that some rats had found it out and 

 destroyed \t.—R. D. Cruden. 



Otter in Oxfordshire.— I again copy a para- 

 graph from the Oxford Chronicle of to-day : — " A 

 fine male otter was captured on Tuesday night in 

 the stream at the bottom of the Earl of Abingdon's 

 wood, near Wytham. Length from tip of nose to 

 extremity of tail, four feet two inches, and weighed 

 nearly twenty-three pounds. Otters are now very 

 rare in this neighbourhood." — Henry Ward. 



"Bees Deserting." — In answer to your corre- 

 spondent, Mr. William Balchin, I wish to state that 

 I have had this year a second swarm of bees that 

 returned to the old stock after having had posses- 

 sion of a hive twenty-one days, and making four 

 nice combs, six or eight inches diameter. I may 

 also add that the second swarm appeared sixteen 

 days after the first one, which is very unusual, as 

 they generally leave about the ninth day. — E. 

 Seville. 



Ligurian Bees.— In reference to the interesting 

 may state (as an old bee-keeper), that if the 

 remarks of " W. A. E." in your December number, I 

 Ligurian bees "provide themselves better," it follows 

 as a matter of course that they produce more honey 

 for the bee-master. It has been well said that " the 

 Ligurian bees collect four times as much honey as 

 they require for their winter's consumption, thus 

 giving as it were three-fourths of their labour to 

 their landlord for the rent of their habitation." It 

 is, I believe, generally admitted that Ligurian bees 

 are more prolific, send out more labourers into the 

 field (which is of great importance, considering the 

 short honey season we enjoy in this country), and they 

 are able to fill supers in much less time than our 

 common black bee. " W. A. E." states his Ligurian 

 swarm was put into the hive on the " 2nd of June," 

 and that they " increased most rapidly," but he does 

 not favour us with the date when he admitted the 

 bees to the five glass supers, or when they were 

 taken away. Neither does he give the date when he 

 " added a box which was filled immediately with 

 bees." Dates are of much importance in such 

 matters. When I resided in Suffolk I found it use- 

 less to allow supers to remain on the hive after the 

 10th of July, but I find the bees will work a month 

 later in Kent. It should also be taken into con- 

 sideration that the season just past has generally 

 been very unfavourable for honey- getting, — the 

 worst I have ever known since I860, — that even my 

 Ligurian bees (of which I have upwards of twenty 

 stocks) have failed to provide a sufficiency for them- 

 selves without a large amount of artificial feeding. — 

 Kentish Bee-keeper. 



To Preserve Crustacea.— I shall feel obliged 

 to any one for information as to the best method of 

 preserving and mounting Crustacea, especially the 

 stalk-eyed, for the cabinet, or where I shall find the 

 necessary instructions. — W. S. 



