2°dS. IX. April 21. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



303 



The exhibition of 1760 took place in the great 

 room of the Society of Arts, then located in the 

 Strand. There was no charge for admission, but 

 the catalogues were sixpence each; of these 6-582 

 were sold. Allowing for the same catalogues fre- 

 quently doing duty more than once, it is almost 

 certain that at that, the first attempt of the sort, 

 there were not less than 10,000 visitors: a public 

 want was being evidently supplied. Among the 

 exhibitors I recognise the names of Reynolds, R. 

 Wilson, G. Smith, Cosway, Cotes, Highmore, 

 Hayman, and Sandby as painters ; Wilton and 

 Roubillac as sculptors; and Hooker, Strange, and 

 Woollett as engravers. Rather a strong cast ! 



T.H. 



Bells in the Fidgi Islands. — In the Annals 

 of the Propagation of the Faith for March, 1860, 

 is printed, under the heading of " Missions of 

 Oceanica," a letter from Father Poupinel, of the 

 Society of Mary, to M. Vauthier, Cure of Conde- 

 sur-Moireon, from which I copy the following 

 passage : — 



" A few words respecting; the Tongian, or rather Fidjian 

 bell ; for it is manufactured in the Fidgi Islands. The 

 Tongians like our bells very well, on account of their 

 strong and melodious vibrations ; but for range of sound, 

 their tali is far superior. Imagine the trunk of a tree, 

 three or four feet long, slightly bevelled at each end,' and 

 hollowed out in the form of a trough. It is placed on 

 the ground upon some elastic body, generally upon a 

 coil of rope ; and to protect it from the rain, covered by 

 a sort of roof. When they want to give the signal for 

 divine service, they strike the mouth of the tali with a 

 mallet, which produces a sort of stifled roar. I should 

 have thought that it could only be heard to a short dis- 

 tance ; my mistake was great. There are latis, the dis- 

 tinct sound of which may be heard to a distance of twelve 

 miles when the air is calm. And yet -when you are near 

 it, the sound is Dot sufficiently loud to startle you in the 

 least; but as you recede it becomes clearer, more mild, 

 and harmonious. When you go to a village and hear 

 its tali, do not judge from" the distinctness of the sound 

 that strikes your ear that you are approaching the place, 

 for you may be mistaken. The tali is, therefore, the 

 favourite instrument at Tonga, and deservedly so. It is 

 named in the same manner as we give names to our bells. 

 ( In feast days the Tongian artists perform on the lali 

 peall that are not wanting in harmony. They rival each 

 Other in ability and skill, and are doubtless no less proud 

 of I heir performance than our bell-ringers in France." 



ExTRANEUS. 



Fx-ock of Stablings. — It is nearly twenty-one 

 years ago that I made a Note of the following 

 spectacle, and, as I have never seen anything like 

 it since, 1 may as well ask you to record it. I was 

 walking one afternoon with three companions on 

 a Dorsetshire down, when we saw, at the distance 

 of about a mile and a half from us, what we at 

 first t'>ok to be the smoke of a lime-kiln, or of 

 some great mas?! of burning weeds; but it soon 

 began t'< bn moved in a much more rapid manner 

 than the state of the wind would account for, and, 

 instead of floating away like smoke, it hovered 

 over the same place. 



After some little observation we perceived that 

 it was a flock of starlings, — \i/apuv vfyos, as the 

 great poet of nature shortly and accurately de- 

 scribes their mode of flight. For half an hour we 

 watched their evolutions with the greatest in- 

 terest ; and indeed I have seldom seen anything 

 more graceful than the variety of their motions, 

 tumbling, and rolling over in the air in, what one 

 might call, the most harmonious confusion. In 

 fact, as they ran through their " mazes," I know 

 of nothing that would better describe 



" Their wanton heed, and giddy cunning," 

 than Milton's beautiful picture of. the melting 

 voice, — 



" Untwisting all the charms that tie 

 The hidden soul of harmony." 



Sometimes the army would divide itself into 

 two parties, which would fly away from each 

 other in opposite directions, as if wearied with 

 their sport, and resolutely determined on sepa- 

 ration ; and then as suddenly wheel and reunite, 

 continuing their gambols still more heartily after 

 this short interruption. Sometimes they would 

 extend themselves in single file, and spread, like 

 a mist, over the broad hill-top, always returning 

 again to their more compact position, in which, at 

 one time, they gyrated cylindrically, like a water- 

 spout, and, at another, stretched themselves out 

 parallel with the horizon, yet constantly present- 

 ing to the eye a central black spot, or pivot, on 

 which they turned. 



The constant maintenance of the same compo- 

 nent parts soon destroyed the idea of their like- 

 ness to a column of smoke, but we were struck by 

 their resemblance to a light gauze scarf floating 

 on the wind, — sometimes bellying out into trans- 

 parency, and sometimes gathered up into an 

 opaque mass. C. W. Bingham. 



Shaw, the Life Guardsman : his Countt, 

 Notts. — In The Scouring of the White Horse, p. 

 97., under the year 1808, is the following : "Two 

 men with very shiny top-boots, quite gentlemen, 

 from London, won the prize for backsword play ; 

 one of which gentlemen was Shaw the Life 

 Guardsman, a Wiltshire man himself as I was 

 told, who afterwards died at Waterloo after killing 

 so many cuirassiers." I have heard from several 

 of his contemporaries anecdotes of Shaw, and they 

 were always coupled with the statement that he 

 was a Wollaton man ; and the following letter _ in 

 the Nottingham Review of Dec. 30, 1859, so coin- 

 cides with other particulars that I enclose it as 

 authentic, premising that "Wvld" should be 

 " Wild," that the Admiral Rodney is at Wollaton, 

 and that there arc two other paragraphs in the 

 numbers of the same journal for Dec. 9 and Dec. 

 23: — 



" Sir, — In reference to one or two recent paragraphs in 

 The lievietv, respecting John Shaw the Life Guardsman, 



