May 15. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



465 



In a letter in the Gentlemarix Magazine for 

 October, 1815, signed "J. C," it is said — 



" But the headless remains of the departed Queen 

 ■were said to be deposited in an arrow-chost, and buried 

 in the Tower Chapel, before the High Altar. Where 

 that stood, the most sagacious antiquary, after a lapse 

 of less than three hundred years, cannot now determine; 

 nor is the circumstance, though related by eminent 

 writers, clearly ascertained. In a cellar the body of a 

 person of short stature, without a head, not many years 

 since was found, and supposed to be the reliques of 

 poor Anna ; but soon after re-interred in the same 

 place, and covered with earth," 



I am informed that the stone in Salle Church 

 was some time since raised, but that no remains 

 were to be found underneath it. Has the tradi- 

 tion referred to by Miss Strickland been noticed 

 by any other writer ? and upon what authority does 

 Burnet say that her remains were placed in an 

 arrow-chest ? I may add that Miss S. states that 

 a similar tradition is assigned to a black stone in 

 the church at Thornden on the Hill : but Morant, 

 in his History of Essex, does not notice it. 



J. H. P. 



TORTOISESIIELL TOM CATS. 



Can any correspondents of " N. & Q." who may 

 have paid particular attention to natural history, 

 throw any light or grounds for explaining the fact 

 of there, I may almost say, never being instances 

 of a male tortoiseshell cat ? for though I have been 

 very lately told that such a one was exhibited 

 in the great display in Hyde Park, yet as I did 

 not witness it myself, I can only use it as the ex- 

 ception which proves the general rule. 



Having for the last fifty years been in the 

 constant habit of keeping cats, and having fre- 

 quently during that time possessed many of a rare 

 and foreign breed, some of which were tortoise- 

 shells of the most beautiful varieties, I have always 

 endeavoured, by mixing the breeds in every way, 

 to procure a male of this peculiar colour ; but with 

 the vast number of kittens that during this long 

 period have fallen under my observation, I have 

 invariably found that if there was the slightest 

 appearance of a single hlack hair on one, otherwise 

 white and orange, so sure would it prove a female ; 

 and thus vice versa, an orange hair appearing on a 

 black and white skin, even in the smallest degree, 

 would immediately proclaim the sex. 



I have asked for an elucidation of this curious 

 fact from two of our greatest naturalists of the 

 present day, but without any success ; Uiave racked 

 my own brain even for some plausible mode of 

 accounting for it, but in vain; for it should be 

 observed that this peculiarity or line of demarc- 

 ation as to sexes does not obtain with other 

 animals, for I have seen what may be called tor- 

 toiseshell horses and cows, that is, with the same 



admixture of colours, and yet they have been in- 

 discriminately of both sexes. 



Now it is true we hear occasionally of a tor^ 

 toiseshell torn cat advertised as having been seen or 

 heard of, but in all these instances a solution of 

 the nitrate of silver has been freely used to aid the 

 imposition, and with all the pains I have taken, I 

 have never been fortunate enough to meet with a 

 honafide ocular demonstration. 



Should any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." 

 have it in their power to throw light on this curious 

 fact in natural history, it will much gratify me, 

 even if it should prove that I am making much 

 about nothing. W. R. 



Surbiton, 



Oasis. — What is the proper pronunciation of 

 this word ? Ninety-nine people out of a hundred 

 will say, as I said, " Oasis, of course !" Let them, 

 however, proceed to consult authorities, and they 

 will begin to be puzzled. Its derivation from the 

 Coptic "wahe" (or "ouahe," the French way of 

 expressing the Egyptian word wahe. — Encycl. 

 Metrop.} seems imiversally admitted. As to the 

 pronunciation, the way in which the word is ac- 

 cented by the different authorities in which I have 

 been able to find it is as follows : — 



"Oaxris (irJA.ts). — Herodot. iii. 26. Larcher's 

 Notes, and Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, 

 give no help as to the pronunciation. 



Rees's Cyclopcedia, and the Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica, do not accent the word at all. Brasse's Greek 

 Gradus, Ainsworth's and Riddle's Dictionaries^ 

 Yonge's Gradus, Walkei-'s Rhyming Dictionary, 

 Webster, Richardson, and Johnson, do not even 

 contain the word. 



The few authorities which do accent the word, 

 do it " with a difference." Ex. gr. : 



O'asis. — Penny Cyclopaedia. 



O'asis. — Imperial Dictionary. 



O'asis. — Spiers' English -French Dictionary, 



Oasis. — Anthon's Lempriere. 



Oasis. — Brande's Dictionary of Science, SfC. 



Oasis. — Butler's Classical Atlas. Index. 

 Who is right ? I have searched all the Indices 

 to the Delphin edition of the Latin poets, without 

 findinj; the word at all. A Cambridge friend 

 quoted at once " sacramque Ammonis oasim ; 

 but, on being pressed, admitted, that if it were 

 not the fag-end of some prize-poem line lurking 

 in his memory, he did not know whence it came. 

 I cannot get anybody to produce me an instance 

 of the use of the word in English poetry. One 

 says, " I am sure it's in Moore," and another, 

 "You're sure to find it in Milton ;" but our En- 

 glish poets lack verbal indices. Some such line 

 as " Some green oasis in the , desert's waste," 

 haunts my own memory, but I cannot give it a 



