602 



NOTES AND QUEBIES. 



[No. 243. 



The law only applies to real property, which, 

 by the Norman custom, was divided in certain 

 proportions among all the children ; and this right 

 of " retrait," as it is technically termed, was doubt- 

 less intended to counteract in some measure the 

 too minute division of land, and to preserve in- 

 heritances in families. It must be exercised within 

 a year of the purchase. For farther information 

 on the subject, Berry's History of Guernsey, 

 p. 176., may be consulted. 



HoNOBE DE MaBEVILLE. 



Guernsey. 



Latin Inscription on Lindsey Court-house (Vol. ix., 

 pp. 492. 552.). — I cannot but express my sur- 

 prise at the learned (?) trifling of some of your 

 correspondents on the inscription upon Lindsey 

 Court-house. Try it thus : 



" Fiat Justitia, 



1619, 



Hebc domus 



Odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat, 



iVequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos." 



which will make two lines, an hexameter and a 

 pentameter, the first letters, O and N, having 

 perhaps been effaced by time or accident. 



Neglecttjs. 



[That this emendation is the right one is clear from 

 the communication of another correspondent, B. R. 

 A. Y., who makes the same, and adds in confirmation, 

 " The following lines existed formerly (and do, perhaps, 

 now) on the Market-house at Much Wenlock, Shrop- 

 shire, which will explain their meaning: 



• Hie locus 

 Odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat, 

 iVequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos.' 



The O and N, being at the beginning of the lines as 

 given by your correspondent, were doubtless obliterated 

 by age."] 



The restoration of this inscription proposed by 

 me is erroneous, and must be corrected from the 

 perfect inscription as preserved at Pistoia and 

 Much Wenlock, cited by another correspondent 

 in p. 552. The three inscriptions are slightly 

 varied. Perhaps " amat pacem " is better than 

 " amat leges," on account of the tautology with 

 " conservat jura." L. 



Myrtle Bee (Vol. ix., p. 205. &c). — I have 

 carefully read and reread the articles on the 

 myrtle bee, and I can come to no other conclu- 

 sion than that it is not a bird at all, but an insect, 

 one of the hawkmoths, and probably the hum- 

 ming-bird hawkmoth. We have so many inde- 

 fatigable genuine field naturalists, picking up every 

 straggler which is blown to our coasts, that I can- 

 not think it possible there is a bird at all common 

 to any district of England, and yet totally un- 

 known to science. Now, insects are often ex- 



ceedingly abundant in particular localities, yet 

 scarcely known beyond them. The size C. Beown 

 describes as certainly not larger than half that of 

 the common wren. The humming-bird {H. M.) 

 is scarcely so large as this, but its vibratory motion 

 would make it look somewhat larger than it really 

 it. Its breadth, from tip to tip of the wings, is 

 twenty to twenty- four lines. The myrtle bee's 

 " short flight is rapid, steady, and direct," exactly 

 that of the hawkmoth. The tongue of the myrtle 

 bee is " round, sharp, and pointed at the end, ap- 

 pearing capable of penetration," not a bad popular 

 description of the suctorial trunk of the hawk- 

 moth, from which it gains its generic name, Ma- 

 croglossa. Its second pair of wings are of a rusty 

 yellow colour, which, when closed, would give it 

 the appearance of being "tinged with yellow about 

 the vent." It has also a tuft of scaly hairs at the 

 extremity of the abdomen, which would suggest 

 the idea of a tail. In fact, on the wing, it appears 

 very like a little bird, as attested by its common 

 name. In habit it generally retires from the mid- 

 day sun, which would account for its being " put 

 up " by the dogs. The furze-chat, mentioned by 

 C. Beown, is the Saxicola rubetra, commonly also 

 called the whinchat. Wm. Hazel. 



Mousehunt (Vol. ix., p. 65. &c). — G. Tenny- 

 son identifies the mousehunt with the beech- 

 martin, the very largest of our Mustelidce, on the 

 authority of Henley " the dramatic commentator." 

 Was he a naturalist too ? I never heard of him as 

 such. 



Now, Mb. W. B. D. Salmon, who first asked 

 the question, speaks of it as less than the common 

 weasel, and quotes Mr. Colquhoun's opinion, that 

 it is only " the young of the year." I have no 

 doubt at all that this is correct. The young of all 

 the Mustelida hunt, and to a casual observer exhi- 

 bit all the actions of full-grown animals, when not 

 more than half the size of their parents. There 

 seems no reason to suppose that there are more 

 than four species known in England, the weasel, 

 the stoat or ermine, the polecat, and the martin. 

 The full-grown female of the weasel is much 

 smaller than the male. Go to any zealous game- 

 keeper's exhibition, and you will see them of many 

 gradations in size. Wm. Hazel. 



Longfellmu 1 s " Hyperion'''' (Vol. ix., p. 495.). — 

 I would offer the following rather as a suggestion 

 than as an answer to Moedan Gillott. But it 

 has always appeared to me that Longfellow has 

 himself explained, by a simple allusion in the 

 work, the reason which dictated the name of his 

 Hyperion. As the ancients fabled Hyperion to be 

 the offspring of the heavens and the earth ; so, in his 

 aspirations, and his weakness and sorrows, Flem- 

 ming (the hero of the work) personifies, as it were, 

 the mingling of heaven and earth in the heart and 



