Mar. 4. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



205 



was a former siege by the French, then under the 

 command of the Cardinal de la Vallette. 



Probably this will be as much as you can afford 

 space for at present, and I will therefore reserve 

 any farther communications for a future Number. 



W. H. Lammin. 



Fulham. 



THE MYRTLE BEE. 



(Vol. viii., p. 593.) 



Ere venturing an opinion as to the exact size of 

 the above, as compared with the Golden-crested 

 Wren, I should much like to ascertain where I 

 am likely to meet with a faithful specimen of the 

 latter ? The Myrtle Bee is about half the size of 

 the common Wren, certainly not larger : and I 

 always took it for granted, the bird derived its 

 name from its diminutiveness and the cover it 

 frequented. I cannot say the bird was generally 

 known in the neighbourhood, having only met 

 with it when in company with sportsmen, in a de- 

 scription of country little frequented by others. 

 I originally obtained the name when a boy from a 

 deceased parent whom I accompanied out shoot- 

 ing ; and for a succession of years the bird was 

 familiar to me, in fact, to all sportsmen of that 

 period who shot over the immediate locality ; we 

 all knew it, although its name was seldom men- 

 tioned. In fact, it never induced a thought be- 

 yond — "Confound the bees, how they bother the 

 dogs" — or some such expression. I am unac- 

 quainted with the Dartford Warbler {Sylvia pro- 

 vincialis, Gmel.) ; but the description as quoted 

 by Mr. Salmon from Yarrell's Hist, of British 

 Birds, 1839, vol. i. p. 311. et seq., differs from the 

 Myrtle Bee. The Warbler is said to haunt and 

 build among furze on commons, and flies with 

 jerks ; whereas I never met with the Myrtle Bee 

 among furze, neither does it fly with jerks : on the 

 contrary, its short fljght is rapid, steady, and 

 direct. The description of the Warbler appears 

 to agree with a small bird well known here as the 

 Furze Chat, but which is out of all proportion as 

 compared with the Myrtle Bee. 



As regards the Query touching the possibility 

 of my memory being treacherous respecting the 

 colour of the bird, after a lapse of twenty-five 

 years, more faith will be placed therein on my 

 stating that I am an old fly-fisher, making my 

 own flies p and that no strange bird ever came 

 to hand without undergoing a searching scrutiny 

 as to colour and texture of the feathers, with the 

 view of converting it to fishing purposes. No such 

 use could be made of the Bee. In a former Num- 

 ber I described the tongue of the Myrtle Bee as 

 round, sharp, and pointed at the end, appearing 

 capable of penetration. I beg to say that I was 

 solely indebted to accident in being able to do so, 



viz. the tongue protruded beyond the point of the 

 bill, owing to the pressure it received in my dog's 

 mouth ; the dog having brought it out enveloped 

 in dead grass, from the foot of the myrtle bush. 



Charles Brown. 



CELTIC ETYMOLOGY. 



(Vol.ix., p. 136.) 



Mr. Crossley seems to confine the word Celtic 

 to the Irish branch of that dialect. My notion of 

 the woi'ds iosal and iriosal is taken from the 

 Highland Gaelic, and the authorised version of 

 the Bible in that language. Let Celtic scholars, 

 who look to the sense of words in the four spoken 

 languages, decide between us. There can be no 

 doubt of the meaning of the two words in the 

 Gaelic of Job v. 1 1 . and Ps. iv. 6. In Welsh, and 

 (I believe) in bas-Breton, there is no word similar 

 to uim or umhal, in the senses of humus and hu- 

 milis, to be found. In Gaelic uir is more common 

 than uim, and talamh more common than either in 

 the sense of humus ; and in that of humble, iosal 

 and iriosal are much more common than umhal. 



It is certain that Latin was introduced into 

 Ireland before it reached the Highlands, and 

 Christianity with it ; and therefore, as this word 

 is not found in one branch of the Celtic at all, and 

 is not a very common word in another, it is not 

 unreasonable to suppose that it is of Latin origin. 

 The sense which Mr. Crossley declares to be the 

 only sense of iosal and iriosal, is precisely that 

 which is the nearest to the original meaning of 

 loiv, and low as the earth; and this is also the sense 

 which humilis always bears in classical Latin, 

 though Christianity (which first recognised hu- 

 mility as a virtue, instead of stigmatising it as a 

 meanness) attached to it the sense which its de- 

 rivatives in all modern Romance languages, with 

 the exception of Italian, exclusively bear. 



Now Mr. Crossley has omitted to notice the 

 fact that umhal in Gaelic, and, I believe, umal in 

 Irish, have not the intermediate sense of low and 

 cringing, but only the Christian sense of humble, 

 as a virtuous attribute. It seems natural that if 

 uim and umal were radical words, the latter would 

 bear the same relation to uim, in every respect, 

 which humilis does to humus, its supposed deriva- 

 tive. But unless humus be derived from x^A"" 

 (the root of x e ^ v *nd x^^s), how does Mr. 

 Crossley account for the h, which had a sound in 

 Latin as well as horror and hostilis, both of which 

 retain the aspirate in English, though they lose it 

 in French ? If Mr. Crossley will tell me why 

 horreur and hostile have no aspirate in French, I 

 will tell him why heir, honour, and humour have 

 none in English, though humid (which is as closely 

 connected with humour, as humidus is with humor) 

 retains the aspirate. 



