2°^ S. VIII. Oct. 1. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



261 



LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1.1869. 



No. 196. — CONTENTS. 



NOTES :_ Ancient Names of the Cat, by Sir G. C. Lewis, 261 —Rare 

 Tracts by Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson, by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, 

 S63— London Sheriffs and Tenure- Services, 264— Shakspeare's House, 

 lb A phara Behn , 265. 



MiNon Notes : — Family Professions — Cromwellian Relic — A Poet's 

 Vow— Shaving Statute — Mauve — Mary Queen of Scots, her Secre- 

 tary, 266. 



QUERIES : — Hamlet Queries, by Dr. J. Elironbaum, 267. 



Minor Qoebibs : _ Metcalf of Searby, County of Lincoln — Lucky 

 Stones — Danish Forts in Ireland — Louis the Fifteenth — Finsbury 

 Jail — Sir Francis Drake, his Portrait, &c. — Cibber's "Apology" — 

 Scire Facias Club — Detached Chapels : Becket's Crown —Sir Robert 

 le Gry s _ Manuscript Verse Translation of De Guileville's " Pilgrim- 

 age — Sir John Franklin _" Tale of a Tub " — Dean Swift, &c., 267. 



Minor Queries with Answers:- Bocardo — Pensionary — Rev. Joseph 

 Grigg — Walpurgis — "Beaver" — Gofton, of Fookwell, Surrey — 

 Vigors — The Apreece Family, 270. 



REPLIES : — The Early Editions of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, by Henry 

 Huth, P. H. Fisher, Lord Foley,&c,271 —Latin Poem against Milton, 

 by R. Brook Aspland, 272 — The Grotesque In Churches, &c., by H. T. 

 Ellacombe, &c., 273. 



Replies to Minor Queries: — Pyne and Poulet — The Great St. Leger 



— Why is Luther represented with a Goose? — Buchanan Pedigree — 

 Hypatia— Abbreviated Names of English Counties and Towns — Pews 



— Sale of a Man and his Progeny : Serfdom — Legends of Normandy 

 and Brittany — Kentish Fire — Alexander Gordon, &c., 276. 



Notes on Books, &c. 



ANCIENT NAMES OF THE CAT. 



In Greek, aixovpos properly signified the cat, 

 and 7o\^ the weasel ; but the ancients did not 

 distinguish accurately between the cat and the 

 weasel, and sometimes used their names indis- 

 criminately, as has been remarked by Perizonius 

 ad ^lian, V. H. xiv. 4., and Beckmann all Aristot. 

 Mir. p. 33. 



The sanctity of the atxovpos in Egypt is de- 

 scribed by Herod, ii. 66, 67., and by Diod. i. 83. 

 87. Strabo states that all the Egyptians worship 

 the ox, the dog, and the aXxovpos, and that the 

 cit\ovpos of Egypt is tamer than that of other 

 countries (xvii. 1. 40. and 2. 4.). In all these 

 passages the cat is meant. See Wilkinson, Mari' 

 Tiers and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, 2nd S. 

 vol. ii. p. 161-8. on the worship of the cat, and 

 the cat-mummies. The sacred Egyptian cat is 

 called a feles by the Latin writers : " At vero ne 

 fando quidem auditum est, crocodilum, aut ibim, 

 aut felem violatum ab iEgyptio." (Cic. N. D. i. 

 29.) Temples were erected to feles, according to 

 Arnob. adv. Gentes, i. 28. 



In the BatracTiomyomachia, the -yaXri, and not 

 the (£[\ovpos, is represented as the natural enemy 

 of mice. Thus, in v. 9. it is said that a thirsty 

 mouse, having escaped the dangers of a yaXeyi, 

 drinks water out of a pool. In v. 48. it is de- 

 clared that the three things which a mouse most 

 dreads are a hawk, a 70^677, and a trap ; but spe- 

 cially he fears a yaXeij, which pursues him into his 

 hole. In V. 131. a mouse complains of his un- 

 lucky fate in losing his three sons. The first was 

 killed by a hateful yaXir], catching him outside 

 M^ his hole. The second was caught by men in a 



trap. The third was dragged down by a frog into 

 the water. In tliis poem the ya\(ri must denote 

 the weasel, as it is described as pursuing the 

 mouse into its hole. On the other hand Calli- 

 machus, in the Hymn to Ceres, v. 111., describes 

 the visitation of hunger with which Erysichthon 

 was cursed, by saying that he was driven to 

 eating mules and horses, " and the aXKovpos, which 

 the small animals dread." In Theocrit. Id. xv. 

 28., a proverbial saying is introduced, at 7aA6ai 

 ixaXuKus xplf<^^otnt KudevSiv, the application of which 

 is not obvious ; but it appears to refer to the cat, 

 and not to the weasel. 



Aristotle, in his History of Animals, uses alfAow- 

 pos for cat, V. 2. He remarks that it eats birds, 

 ix. 6. In vi. 37. he says that wild 7aAar destroy 

 mice, and that the 70^^ kills birds in an ingenious 

 manner (jppov((iws) ; it attacks their throat, as a 

 wolf kills a sheep, ix. 6. (Compare Camus, Notes 

 sur VHist. des An. d'Aristote, pp. 119. 195.) 



The ferret was called by the Greeks the Tar- 

 tessian yaXri ; this variety of the weasel tribe 

 having, as it appears, been originally a native of 

 the north-western region of Africa and the south- 

 western part of Spain. (See " N. & Q." 2°* S. 

 vji. 191.) Dureau de la Malle, in his paper on 

 the domestication of the cat, Annates des Sciences 

 Naturelles, torn. xvii. (1829), is mistaken in iden- 

 tifying the yaXft Taprqffia with the civet, Viverra 

 civetta, p. 188. The Uns of Aristotle, H. A. ix. 

 6., is, according to Dureau de la Malle, thefouine 

 .or the marte (the polecat or the martin). Others 

 have considered it a species of ferret ; Schneider 

 ad Aristot. H. A. vol. iv. p. 48. The ferret is 

 called Viverra by Plin. viii. 81. 



The Greek mythology had a story of Galanthis 

 being metamorphosed into a weasel QyaXri). Ac- 

 cording to this story, as related by Ovid, when 

 Alcmena is in the pains of the labour which is to 

 bring Hercules into the world, Juno, from jea- 

 lousy, seeks to retard the birth, and she j)roduces 

 this effect by knitting her hands together in a 

 magic knot. Galanthis, a Theban woman, in- 

 duces her to relax this position by telling her 

 that the delivery of Alcmena is completed. The 

 charm is broken by this false intelligence, and the 

 infant Hercules is born. Juno, out of revenge, 

 changes Galanthis into a weasel. 



Galanthis is thus described : — 



" Una ministrarum, media de plebe, Galanthis, 

 Flava comas aderatj faciendis strenua jussis." 



Her metamorphosis is pourtrayed as follows : — 



" Strenuitas antiqua manet ; nee terga colorem 

 Amisere suum : forma est diversa priori. 

 Quae, quia mendaci parientem juverat ore, 

 Ore parit ; nostrasque domos, ut et ante, frequentat." 

 Met. ix, 306—323. 



These verses allude to the mobility of the weasel, 

 to its flesh-coloured coat, to its being the inmate 

 of the dwellings of man, and to the fiction, accre- 



