254 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 16. 
first syllable, concerning which the ingenuity of 
your various correspondents, Mr. Editor, may be 
exercised to some effect. Is it connected with 
the use of the crimping irons in producing these 
delicacies ? Hyromaairus. 
Oxford. 
Dulcarnon. — Dulearnon is one of those words 
in Chaucer which Tyrwhitt professes that he does 
not understand. It occurs in 77otlus and Creseide, 
book iii. 931. 933. Creseide says : — 
“Tam, til God me better minde sende, 
At Dulcarnon, right at my witt'is ende. 
Quod Pandarus ye nece, wol ye here, 
Dulcarnon clepid is fleming * of wretches.” 
This passage of Troilus and Creseide is quoted 
in the life of Sir Thomas More, given in Words- 
worth’s Ecclesiastical Biography. More’s daughter 
said to him, when he was in prison, “ Father, I 
can no further goe; I am come, as Chaucer said of 
Cressid Dulearnon, to my witt’s end.” 
Has this passage been satisfactorily explained 
since Tyrwhitt’s time? The epithet “ Dulcarnon” 
is mentioned in a note to the translation of 
Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon, London, 1832. I 
give the note in full. It is in reference to the 
word “ Ellefuga” : — 
“ This word was a pons asinorum to some good 
Greeians, —but that is probably its meaning}; at 
least making it the name ofa problem gets over all 
difficulty. The allusion is to the flight of Helle, who 
turned giddy in taking a flying leap, mounted on a 
ram, and fell into the sea;—so a weak head fails in 
crossing the pons. The problem was invented by 
Pythagoras, ‘and it hath been called by barbarous 
writers of the latter time Dulearnon.’ — Billingsley. 
This name may have been invented after our author's 
time. Query doAKapyvoy.” 
If we take the word ‘‘ Dulcarnon” in this 
sense, it will help to explain the passage in the 
Troilus and Creseide. E. M. B. 
Bishop Barnaby.— The origin of the term 
“Bishop Barnaby,” as applied to the Lady-bird, is 
still unexplained. 
I wish to observe, as having some possible con- 
nexion with the subject, that the word “Barnaby” 
in the seventeenth century appears to have had a 
particular political signification. 
For instance, I send you a pamphlet (which 
you are welcome to, if you will accept of it) called 
“ The Head of Nile, or the Turnings and Windings 
of the Factious since Sixty, in a dialogue between 
Whigg and Barnaby,’ London, 1681. In this 
dialogue Whigeg, as might be expected, is the 
aD? 
exponent of all manner of abominable opinions, 
* Fleming; banishing? from fleme, A. S. to banish. 
+ “ Helleflight,” as given in the translation, p. 178. 
whilst Barnaby is represented as the supporter of 
orthodoxy. 
Again, in the same year was published Durfey’s 
comedy, “Sir Barnaby Whigg,” the union of the 
two names indicating that the knight’s opinions 
were entirely regulated by his interest. Q. D. 
P.S. The pamphlet above alluded to affords 
another instance of the use of the word “ Fac- 
totum,” at page 41, “before the Pope had a great 
house there, and became Dominus Factotum, 
dominus Deus noster Papa.” 
Barnacles.—In Speculum Mundi, or a Glass 
representing the Face of the World, by John Swan, 
M. A., 4th edit., 1670, is the following mention of 
the Barnacle goose (pp. 243, 244.) :— 
“In the north parts of Scotland, and in the places 
adjacent, called Ovchades, are certain trees found, 
whereon there groweth a certain kind of shell-fish, of a 
white colour, but somewhat tending to a russet; 
wherein are contained little living creatures. For in 
time of maturity the shells do open, and out of them 
by little and little grow those living creatures; which 
falling into the water when they drop out of their 
shells, do become fowls, such as we call Barnacles or 
Brant Geese; but the other that fall upon the land, 
perish and come to nothing.” 
The author then quotes the passage from Gerard 
where mention is made of the Barnacle. 
Henry Kersey. 
Ancient Alms-Dishes.—I have one of these 
dishes: diameter, 1 foot 43 inches, and its height 
li inch. The centre is plain, without any de- 
vice, and separated from the circle of inscription 
by a bold embossed pattern. 
The inscription is Der infrid gehwart, in raised 
(not engraved) capital letters, 1 inch long, re- 
peated three times in the circle. Mine is a hand- 
some dish of mixed metal; yielding, when struck, 
a fine sound like that of a gong. It has devices 
of leaves, &c. engraved on the broad margin, but 
no date. 
I have seen another such dish, in the collection 
of the late William Hooper, Esq., of Ross, part 
of which (and I think the whole of the under side) 
had been enamelled, as part of the enamel still 
adhered to it. In the centre was engraved the 
temptation in Eden; but it was without legend or 
date. P. HH. F. 
Why the American Aborigines are called Indians. 
—TI have often wondered how the aborigines of 
America came to be called Indians; and for a 
considerable time I presumed it to be a popular 
appellation arising from their dark colour. Lately, 
however, I fell in with a copy of Theatrum Orbis 
Terrarum, Antwerp, 1583, by Abraham Ortelius, 
geographer to the king; and, in the map entitled 
Typus Orbis Terrarum, I find America called 
America sive India Nova. How it came to get 
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