Fes. 9. 1850.] 
Perhaps some of your readers can explain why 
the cuckoo is so called. G, 
A recent Novel. — Having lately met with an 
extremely rare little volume, the title of which 
runs thus: “La prise d'un Seigneur Ecossois et 
de ses gens qui pilloient les navires pescheurs de 
France, ensemble Ie razement de leur fort et le 
rétablissement d@’un autre pour le service du Roi 
».-.en la Nouvelle France ... par le sieur Male- 
part. Rouen, le Boullenger, 1630. 12°, 24 pp.” 
I was reminded of a modern novel, the principal 
scenes of which are laid in an island inhabited hy 
a British nobleman of high rank, who, having 
committed a political crime, had been reported 
dead, but was saved by singular circumstances, 
and led the life of a buccaneer. Can any of your 
numerous readers be good enough to.mention the 
title of the novel alluded to, which has escaped 
my memory ? ADOLPHUS. 
Authorship of a Couplet.— Can you help me to 
the authorship of the following lines ?— 
« Th’ unbappy have whole days, and those they choose ; 
The happy have but hours, and those they lose.” 
Paw: 
Seal of Killigrew, and Genealogy of the Killi- 
grew Family.—‘“ Buriensis” (No, 13. p. 204.) is 
informed that the arms on the seal at Sudbury are 
certainly those of a member of the old Cornish 
house of Killigrew. These arms, impaled by those 
of Lower, occur on a monument at Llandulph, 
near Saltash, to the memory of Sir Nicholas 
Lower, and Elizabeth his wife, who died in 1638. 
She was a daughter of Sir Henry Killegrewe, of 
London, and a near relative, I believe, of the 
Master of the Revels. 
While on this subject, I beg to put a query to 
your genealogical readers. The double-headed 
eagle, the bordure bezantée, and the demilion 
charged with bezants, are all evident derivations 
from the armorial bearings of Richard, titular 
king of the Romans, Earl of Cornwall, &e., second 
son of King John. The family of Killegrewe is 
of venerable antiquity in Cornwall. What I wish 
to ascertain is, the nature of the connection be- 
tween the family and that unfortunate “king.” 
Was it one of consanguinity, or merely one of 
feudal dependence ? Marx Antony Lower. 
** See, on the origin of the arms of Richard 
and their derivatives, my Curiosities of Heraldry, 
pp- 309. et seq. 
REPLIES. 
SELAGO AND SAMOLUS, 
In common with the misletoe and vervain the 
Druids held the Selago and Samolus as sacred 
plants, and never approached them but in the 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
231 
most. devout and reverential manner. When they 
were gathered for religious purposes the greatest 
eare was taken lest they should fall to the earth, 
for it was an established principle of Druidism, 
that every thing that was sacred would be pro- 
faned if allowed to touch the ground; hence their 
solicitude to catch the anguinum : : 
When they bear 
Their wond’rous egg aloof in air: 
Thence before to earth it fall, 
The Druid in his hallow’d pall 
Receives the prize.” 
Pliny, in his Natural History (lib. xxiv. cap. 11.) 
gives a circumstantial account of the ceremonies 
used by the Druids in gathering the Selago and 
Samolus, and of the uses to which they were ap- 
plied: — 
“ Similis herb huie sabine est Selago appellata. 
Legitur sine ferro dextra manu per tunicam, qua 
sinistra exuitur velut a furante, candida veste vestito, 
pureque lotis nudis pedibus, sacro facto priusquam 
legatur, pane vinoque. Fertur in mappa nova. Hane 
eontra omnem perniciem habendain prodidere Druide 
Gallorum, et contra omnia oculorum vitia fumum ejus 
prodesse. 
* Tidem Samolum herbam nominavere nascentem 
in humidis: et hane sinistra manu legi a jejunis contra 
morbos suum boumque, nee respicere legentem: nec 
« 
| alibi quam in eanali, deponere, ibique conterere po- 
turis.” 
From the very slight manner in which these plants 
are described by Pliny, it is next to impossible to 
identify them with any degree of certainty, though 
many attempts for the purpose have been made. 
So far as I know, Pliny is the only ancient author 
who mentions them, and we have therefore nothing 
to guide us beyond what he has said in this 
passage. 
The word Selago is supposed to be derived 
from se and lego, i, e. guid certo ritu seligeretur. 
Linnzus appropriated the name to a pretty genus 
of Cape plants, but which can have nothing what- 
ever to do with the Selago of the Druids. It has 
been thought to be the same as the Serratula 
Chamepeuce of Linnzus, but without sufficient 
reason, for Pliny says it resembles the savine; and 
Matthiolus, in his Commentary on Dioscorides, 
when speaking of the savine (Juniperus Sabina), 
says : — 
“ Siquidem vidi pro Sabina assumi quandam heibam 
dodrantalem que quibusdam in montibus plurima 
nascitur, folio tamaricis, licet nee odore nee sapore 
Sabinam referat. Hance szpius existimavi esse Selagi- 
nem a Plinio lib. xxiv. c,11. commemoratam.” 
Samolus, or as some copies read Samosum, is 
said to be derived from two Celtic words, san, 
salutary, and mos, pig; denoting a property in 
the plant which answers to the description of 
Pliny, who says the Gauls considered the Samolus 
as a specific in all maladies of swine and cattle. 
