390 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 107. 



I subjoin a few extracts, -which afford a curions 

 instance of the respective prices put upon the 

 heads of these animals at a time when such entries 

 occur; as, 



" 15S7 for ij dyverse p'achers far iij sermones iij' iiij''. 



158^ Itin for iiij fox heads 



1586 — ij fox heads 



1589 — t-atte heades 



1590 - 



• xvj'' 

 iiijJ 



VJd 



xij<> 

 xij'' 

 xiiij* 

 ij" 



xijd 

 iiij'* 

 iiijd 

 i»" 



— xij bulspyncke (bulfinch) heades . vj" 



„ — vj Crowe heades . . . . j'^ 



„ — an urclien (hedghog) heade . 



1596 — a graves head 



16'_'0 — a bawson bead 



1G21 — tow fox cub heads 



„ — vij hedghoge heads 



1626 — a wylde catt head 



1736 — an otter head 



1741 — a fuhuart's head . 



„ — a ffbomard's head 



1744 — 3 marts heads 



These entries are very numerous in our books 

 with every variety of spelling, though the prices 

 remain very much the same. I have found no 

 entries of the kind after 1744, but that may be 

 owing to the accounts being not entered fully in 

 every case after that period ; but I cannot agree 

 with J. B. in his assertion that these animals are 

 now considered innocuous; witness the vulgar error 

 with resrard to the hedsrehog's suckinjr the teats of 

 cows, an error which no process of reasoning can 

 induce the farmers about here to renounce ; more- 

 over, I know for a fact that not more than a dozen 

 years ago the farmers near Wakefield used to give 

 a halfpenny per head for every unlucky sparrow 

 (fledged or unfledged) that was brought to them 

 by any bird-nesting youngster. J. Eastwood. 



Ecclesfield, Sheffield. 



THE CLAIMS OF LITERATURE. 



(Vol. iv., p. 337.) 



There is the more pressing need, in our day, of 

 an Order of Victoria, or of Civil J\Ierit — such as 

 you justlv and feelingly contend for and describe 

 in the "Notes and Queries" — from the great 

 and increasing numbers of our literary and scien- 

 tific men, who are acutely sensible of the unde- 

 served stigma and ban under which they lie, 

 by being often e.xcluded from the intellectual 

 society so congenial to them, owing to their not 

 possessing some recognised badge of honour and 

 passport in life, equivalent to the degrees or dis- 

 tinctions so justly conferred upon those who have 

 studied at our Universities, or are awarded to men 

 who have won eminence in the Naval, Military, or 

 Civil Service of the Crown. An honourable title, 

 proceeding from the Sovereign herself, and be- 

 stowed alike on both sexes (for who would think — 

 certainly not our beloved Queen — of wounding 



the delicate female mind by excluding a Somer- 

 ville, a Hannah Jlore, a Joanna Baillie, or aFelicia 

 Hemans — the three latter not needing now our 

 poor applause — from the cheering honours due 

 to their genius, their talents, and their virtues?) 

 would be a fitting tribute from a British, a Christian 

 Monarch to that intellectual superiority and moral 

 worth which are the inunortal distinctions of our 

 race. At present many individuals who have 

 raised themselves by their native force of mind 

 and acquirements to a position of honour and 

 respectability as literary and scientific men, are 

 yet looked upon and treated as pariahs by those 

 who are the bestowers and guardians of national 

 distinctions. The just pride and self-respect of 

 such men will forbid their courting, by any un- 

 worthy advances, an introduction to society, from 

 which, by their position, they stand excluded ; 

 and it would be a truly royal exercise of her 

 sovereign rights, for Queen Victoria to extend, 

 beyond the present line of demarcation, the bar- 

 riers that now prevent those from meeting to- 

 gether, who, if they were better acquainted, 

 would learn to value and esteem each other : while 

 society at large would be an immense gainer in 

 all its relations — scientific, literary, and artistic — 

 by the honours and distinctions thus conferred 

 upon a most worthy, but most contemned and 

 neglected portion of the educated community. 

 A Contributor to " Notes and Queries." 



iirpTtf^ to iHtn0r CSufrirt. 



Arhnr Lowe — Stanton Bfoor — Ayi-e Family 

 (Vol. iv., p. 274.). — In Rhodes's Peak Scenery, 

 p. 228., it is said : 



" Near Middleton, by Yoiilgrave, we found the ce- 

 lebrated Druidical monument of Arber Low, one of the 

 most striking remains of antiiiuity in any part of Der- 

 byshire. This circle includes an area of from forty to 

 fifty yards diameter, formed by a series of large un- 

 hewn stones, not standing upright, but all laid on the 

 ground, with an inclination towards the centre ; round 

 these the remains of a ditch, circumscribed by a high 

 embankment, may be traced. Near the south entrance 

 into this circle there is a mound, or burial-place, in 

 whieli some fragments of au urn, some half-burnt bones, 

 and the horns of a stag, were found." 



In the same work, at pages 236, 237., is an ac- 

 count of the Druidical remains at Stanton Moor. 

 And at page 224. are the following remarks : — 



" The Eyres is one of the oldest families in Derby- 

 sliire, where they have continued to reside through the 

 long lapse of more than seven hundred years, as appears 

 from the following curious extract from an old pedigree 

 which is preserved at Hassop. ' The first of the Eyres 

 came in with King AV'illiam the Conqueror, and his 

 name was Truelove ; but in the liattie of Hastings 

 ( 1 4 Oct. 1 066) this Truelove, seeing the king unhorsed. 



