XXXvi. FIRST WINTER MEETING. 



as long as two months without much change) and furnishes food for the 

 grub which hatches from the egg in the cell with it. The wasp makes as 

 many cells as there is room for, in this reel about three, with thin walls 

 of mud. Other species use spiders instead of caterpillars. This little wasp 

 is very common, and may often be seen on windows and elsewhere, 

 looking for a suitable nesting place. 



(2). A MS. of the 15th century, small 4to. 



A Service Book containing services to be used for a nun who is at the 

 point of death and after she has died ; but it does not contain a burial 

 service. The book contains a good deal of musical notation, and numerous 

 initials in burnished gold and colours. The first page has a large initial 

 letter, and a floral and scroll border in colours and gold. 



By the Hon. Secretary REV. HERBERT PENTIN : 



A musical cryptograph, upon which he read the following 

 note : 



This is said to be the original secret cipher communication sent by a 

 lady to King Charles II. when at Boscobel, after the defeat of the Royalist 

 army at Worcester in 1651. It is the property of Miss White, of Hamilton 

 House, Portland, and came into possession of her family through a Mr. 

 Port (the father of a Portland clergyman, the Rev. George Port), whose 

 wife had been a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte. The Port family 

 obtained it through an intermarriage with a member of the Royalist family 

 of Grenville. The cryptograph was exhibited at the Stuart Exhibition in 

 London in 1887, at the request of the Earl of Winchelsea. To decipher 

 the message it is only necessary to fold one of the lines of the bass 

 stave on to one of the lines of the soprano stave and it will be seen 

 that the hooks and slurs of the musical notes form themselves into the 

 words " Conceal yourself: your foes look for you." Dr. John Wallis, who 

 is reputed to have been the principal decipherer of such Royalist secret 

 despatches as fell into the hands of Cromwellians, states that the art of secret 

 writing had grown so common and familiar during the civil commotions 

 " that now there is scarce a person of quality but is more or less acquanted 

 with it, and doth, as there is occasion, make use of it." It is also on record 

 that Charles I. and his Queen were adepts in the use of ciphers, so that 

 without any doubt their Royal son would have been acquainted with every 

 variety of cipher then in use, and it is known that among those in use 

 was musical cryptography. 



By CAPTAIN ACLAND : 



A number of Turkish bank notes, which had been brought 

 from Mesopotamia by a soldier. 



