Aug. 27. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



199 



Louis le Hutin. — When or for what reason was 

 the sobriquet " Hutin " attached to Louis X. of 

 France ? And what is the meaning of " Hutin ? " 



F. S. A. 



\_Hutin is defined by Roquefort, brusque, emportc, 

 querelleiir, from the Low Latin Hidinus ; and in illus- 

 trating the word he furnishes the following reply to 

 our correspondent's Query : " Mezerai rapporte que 

 Louis X. fat surnomme Hutin, parceque, des son en- 

 fance, il aimait a quereller et a se battre, et que ce 

 surnom fut lui donne par allusion a un petit maillet 

 dont se servent les tonneliers, appele hutinet, parce- 

 qu'il fait beaucoup de bruit. "J 



aaciiitc^. 



BEE-PAEK BEE-HAIiL. 



(Vol. v., pp. 322. 498.) 



Enjoying as we do the advantages of the ex- 

 tension of scientific knowledge, and its application 

 to our routine of daily v/ants, we are apt to forget 

 that our forefathers were without many things we 

 deem essentials. Your correspondents C. W. G. 

 and B. B. have touched upon a curious feature of 

 antiquity, which science and commerce have ren- 

 dered obsolete. Yet, before the introduction of 

 sugar, bees were important ministers to the luxu- 

 ries of the great, as mentioned at the above-cited 

 pages. I was struck with the following passage in 

 the first forest charter of King Henry III. : 



" Every freeman . . . shall likewise have the 

 honey which shall be found in his woods." 



This, in a charter second only in importance, 

 perhaps, to Magna Charta Itself, sounds strange to 

 our ideas ; moderns would not think It a very 

 royal boon. But the note with which Mr. K. 

 Thomson {Historical Essay on the Magna Charta 

 of King John, p. 352.) illustrates this passage is 

 interesting, and, though rather long, may be worth 

 insertion in your columns : 



" The second part of this chapter secures to the 

 woodland proprietor all the honey found in his woods ; 

 which was certainly a much more important gift than 

 it would at first appear, since the Hon. Daines Bar- 

 rjngton remarks, that perhaps there has been no law- 

 suit or question concerning it for the last three hun- 

 dred years. In the middle ages, however, the use 

 of honey was very extensive in England, as sugar was 

 not brought hither untd the fifteenth century ; and it 

 was not only a general substitute for it in preserving, 

 but many of the more luxurious beverages were prin- 

 cipally composed of it, as mead, metheglin, pigment, 

 and morat, and these were famous from the Saxon days, 

 down even to the time of the present charter (1217). 

 In the old Danish and Swedish laws bees form a prin- 

 cipal subject ; and honey was a considerable article of 

 rent in Poland, in which it was a custom to bind any 



one who stole it to the tree whence it was taken. The 

 Baron de Mayerberg also relates, that when he tra- 

 velled in Muscovy in 1661, he saw trees there ex- 

 pressly adapted to receive bees, which even those who 

 felled their own wood were enjoined to take down in 

 such a manner that they who prepared them should have 

 the benefit of the honey. Nor was the wax of less im- 

 portance to the woodland proprietors of England, since 

 candles of tallow are said to have been first used only 

 in 1290, and those of wax were so great a luxury, that 

 in some places they were unknown : but a statute con- 

 cerning wax-chandlers, passed in 1433 (the Ilth of 

 Henry VI. chap. 12.), states that wax was then used 

 in great quantities for the images of saints. Only re- 

 ferring, however, to the well-known use of large wax 

 tapers by King Alfred in the close of the ninth cen- 

 tury, it may be observed that in the laws of Hoel Dha, 

 king of South Wales, which are acknowledged as au- 

 thentic historical documents, made about a. d. 940, of 

 much older materials, is mentioned the right of the 

 king's chamberlain to as much wax as he could bite 

 from the end of a taper." — Coke; Manwood ; Bar- 

 ri7igton ; Statutes of the Realm. 



Perhaps you will allow a few words more in 

 Illustration of B. B.'s Query (Vol. v., p. 498.). 

 A recent correspondent, writing of some modern 

 experiments on the venom of toads, suggests the 

 propriety of contributing to a list of " vulgar 

 errors " which have proved to be " vulgar truths." 

 It would not much surprise me to learn tliat, after 

 all, the popular belief in the efficacy of the rough 

 music of the key and warming-pan might be 

 added to his list. At all events the reason stated 

 by B. B. to prove Its uselessness, viz. that bees 

 have no sense of hearing, must, I think, be 

 abandoned, as a Query of Mr. Sydney Smirke 

 (Vol. vll., p. 499.), and an answer (Vol. vii., 

 p. 633.), win show. That all insects are possessed 

 of hearing, naturalists seem now as well convinced 

 of as that they have eyes ; though some naturalists 

 formerly considered they were not, as Linnceus 

 and Bonnet ; while Huber (his interesting ob- 

 servations on bees notwithstanding) seems to have 

 been quite undecided on the point. Bees, as well 

 as all other insects, hear through the medium of 

 their antenna?, which In a subordinate degi'ee are 

 used as feelers ; observing which, perhaps, Huber 

 and others were indisposed to ascribe to them the 

 sense in question. 



In reference to Mr. Sydney Smirke's Query, 

 so far from other naturalists confirming Huber's 

 observations as to the effect produced by the sound 

 emitted by the Sphynx atropos on the bees, be- 

 sides Dr. Bevan (quoted Vol. vii., p. 633.), the 

 intelligent entomologist, Mr. Duncan, author of the 

 entomological portion of The Naturalist's Library 

 (vol. xxxiv. pp. 53 — 55.), completely disproves 

 them. He tells us that he has closely watched 

 bees, and has seen the queen attack the larva cells ; 

 but the sentinels, notwithstanding the reiteration 

 of the queenly sound, so far from remaining mo- 



