136 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 224. 



■which shall appear in " K". & Q." if desired. The 

 Norfolk Mustelidce in order of size are the "poll- 

 cat" or weasel ; the stoat, or carre ; the mouse- 

 hunt, mousehunter, or lobster. A popular notion 

 of gamekeepers is, that pollcats add a new lobe to 

 their livers every year of their lives ; but the dis- 

 gusting smell of the animal prevents examining 

 this point by dissection. E. G. 11. 



If Fennell's Natural History of Quadrupeds be 

 correctly quoted, as it is stated to be " a very ex- 

 cellent and learned work," Mr. Fennell must have 

 been a better naturalist than geographer, for he 

 says of the beech marten : 



" In Selkirkshire it has been observed to descend to 

 the shore at night time to feed upon moll asks, particu- 

 larly upon the large basket mussel (Mytilus modiolus)." 



Selkirkshire, as you well know, is an inland 

 county, nowhere approaching the sea by many 

 miles : I would fain hope, for Mr. Fennell's sake, 

 that Selkirkshire is either a misprint or a misquo- 

 tation. J. Ss. 



Begging the Question (Vol. viii., p. 640.). — This 

 is a common logical fallacy, petitio principii ; and 

 the first known use of the phrase is to be found in 

 Aristotle, to £v apxn o.lTuadax^Topics,h. viii. ch.xiii., 

 Bohn's edition), where the five ways of " begging 

 the question," as also the contraries thereof, are set 

 forth. In the Prior Analytics (b. n. ch. xvi.) he 

 gives one instance from mathematicians — 



"who fancy that they describe parallel lines, for 

 they deceive themselves by assuming such things as 

 they cannot demonstrate unless they are parallel. 

 Hence it occurs to those who thus syllogise to say that 

 each thing is, if it is ; and thus everything will be 

 known through itself, which is impossible." 



T. J. BuCKTON. 

 Birmingham. 



Termination "-by" (Vol. viii., p. 105.). — On 

 going over an alphabetical list of places from A 

 to G, I obtained these results : 



Lincoln ------ 65 



Leicester - - - - - -21 



York 24 



Northampton ----- 9 

 Cumberland ----- 7 



Norfolk 6 



Westmoreland ----- 3 

 Lancashire ----- 2 



Derby 2 



Nottingham ----- 2 



Sussex ------ 1 



Total - - - 142 



Results of a similar character were obtained in 

 reference to -thorp, -trop, -thrup, or -drop; Lin- 

 coln again heading the list, but closely followed 

 by Norfolk, then Leicester, Notts, &c. B. H. C. 



German Tree (Vol. viii., p. 619. ; Vol. ix., 

 p. 65.). — Eryx has mistaken my Query owing to 

 its vagueness. When I said, " Is this the first 

 notice of a German tree in England ? " I meant, 

 " Is this the first notice of a Gennan-tree-in-Eng- 

 land ? " and not " Is this the first notice-in-Eng- 

 land of a German-tree ? " as Eryx understood it. 



Zeus. 



Celtic Etymology (Vol. ix., p. 40.). — If the h 

 must be "exhasperated" (as Matthews used to 

 say) in words adopted into the English language, 

 how does it happen that we never hear it in hour, 

 honour, heir, honest, and humour? Will E. C. H. 

 be so kind as to inform me on this point ? With 

 regard to the word humble, in support of the h 

 being silent, I have seen it stated in a dictionary, 

 but by whom I cannot call to mind, in a list of 

 words nearly spelled alike, and whose sound is 

 the same : 



" Humble, low, submissive." 



" Umbles, the entrails of a deer." 



Hence the point of the sarcasm " He will be made 

 to eat humble pie ;" and it serves in this instance 

 to show that the h is silent when the word is pro- 

 perly pronounced. 



The two words isiol and irisiol, properly uirisiol, 

 which E. C. II. has stated to be the original Celtic 

 words signifying humble, have quite a different 

 meaning : for isiol is quietly, silently, without 

 noise ; and uirisiol means, sneaking, cringing, 

 crawling, terms which could not be applied with- 

 out injustice to a really humble honest person. 

 The Iberno-Phcenician umal bears in itself evi- 

 dence that it is not borrowed from any other 

 language, for the two syllables are intelligible 

 apart from each other; and the word can be at 

 once reduced to its root urn, to which the Sanscrit 

 word kshama, as given by E. C. H., bears no re- 

 semblance whatever. Fras. Crossley. 



Recent Curiosities of Literature (Vol. ix., p. 31.). 

 — Your correspondent Mr. Cuthbert Bebe has 

 done well in directing Mr. Thackeray's attention 

 to the error of substituting " candle" for " candle- 

 stick," at p. 47. of The Newcomes ; but it appears 

 that the author discovered the error, and made a 

 clumsy effort to rectify it ; for he elsewhere gives 

 us to understand, that she died of a wound in her 

 temple, occasioned by coming into contact with 

 the stone stairs. See H. Newcome's letter. 



The following curiosity of literature lately ap- 

 peared in the London papers, in a biographical 

 notice of the late Viscount Beresford, which is 

 inserted in the Naval and Military Gazette of 

 January 14, 1854 : 



" Of honorary badges be had, first, A cross depen- 

 dent from seven clasps : this indicated his having 

 been present in eleven battles during the Peninsular 

 War. His name was unaccountably omitted in the 



