FLINT JACK 311 



of head, or crown, or crest, from my boyhood ; but 

 though b and p arc in many cases interchangeable, and 

 most likely " cob " and " cop " have a common origin, 

 yet I cannot think that "cob " would ever return to the 

 form " cop." 



I do not think your explanations of " pen " will 

 hold, and we shall have to look further to account for 

 it. Likely enough it is connected with penna, but 

 its special meaning as a hen swan seems still obscure. 

 I shall send the copy of your article to Skeat, and if he 

 can throw any light on the subject I will let you know. 

 Notwithstanding what you have written, and my own 

 suggestion now made as to " cob," I still think Yarrell's 

 second statement is unintelligible, though his first, on 

 your showing, is satisfactorily authorised. [See Diet. 

 Birds, art. " Cob".] 



Yours very truly, 



Alfred Newton. 



September 5, 1899. 



My dear Harvie-Brown, 



I am afraid you will find it very hard to get 

 any specimens of Flint Jack's handiwork. You may be. 

 sure that most of his victims threw them away as soon 

 as the fraud was exposed. Except John Evans * who, 

 I believe, has some, I cannot think of anybody of my 

 acquaintance likely to have any — and he would not be 

 likely to part with them. I have certainly seen some 

 of Jack's forgeries in Museums — the Blackmore Museum 

 at Salisbury among others — but there they are kept for 

 a purpose, and would not be given up. I am not sure 

 that we may not have a few of the counterfeits in our 

 Antiquarian Museum at Cambridge. I remember some 

 one exhibiting some at a meeting of the Ray Club 

 about the time the matter was exposed, and I think 

 John Evans had a good deal to do with it. The story 

 is that he, or some one else, beginning to suspect Flint 

 Jack, drew on paper the form of a purely imaginary 



* His are now in the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford. 



