56 COMMON BRITISH ANIMALS 



Tims in the song: 



" Up and down the City road. 

 In and out the ' Eagle,' 

 That's the way the money goes. 

 Pop goes the weasel."* 



The ^^ Eagle/' afterwards the Grecian Theatre, was 

 a place of resort for evening entertainment, the chief 

 source of attraction being comic singers, and in this 

 way the lucky purse or weasel was soon gone. 



It is more probable that the popular song was 

 suggested by a north country boys^ and girls' game 

 song, which is given in ^Wright's Dialect Dictionary.' 

 The game consists in players forming two opposite 

 rows of boys and girls, which go backwards and for- 

 wards singing a verse, and when they reach the last 

 line twirl round. One of the verses is : 



" Half a pound of nnts and spice. 

 Half a pound of treacle. 

 Stir it round and make it nice. 

 Pop goes the weasel." 



Here the last line apparently ha sno reference to 

 pawning, but expresses the twirling and winding of 

 the couples. 



The writer of an article entitled ^^ Countrymen's 

 Nature Lore,'' in 'The Times,' December 3rd, 1910, 

 says : "the name of 'cane,' often applied to the weasel, 

 is restricted to an imaginary species supposed to be 

 smaller than the true weasel, as the rene thrush is 

 smaller than the song thrush." 



* Mr. E. E. Adlard Avrites : "The explanation given by my 

 father to his inquiring youngster many years ago was that " pop " 

 meant to pawn, and a "weasel" was a flat iron- — the last household 

 article to he parted with for necessities or extravagances. 



