The Xeic Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



that is, number of sheep : we find its allied word " toll," to 

 count. " I toll ten cows," is no very uncommon expression. 

 Then, too, we have the word " tole," used, as I believe it 

 still is in America, of enticing animals, and thus metaphorically 

 applied to other matters. So, in this last sense, Milton speaks 

 of the title of a book, " Hung out like a toling sign-post to 

 call passengers."* 



Again, too, the bat is here called " rere -mouse " (from the 

 Old-English hrere-mus, literally the raw-mouse), with its 

 varieties rennie-mouse and reiny-mouse,t whilst the adjective 

 " rere " is sometimes used, as in Wiltshire, for raw. On 

 the other hand, the word fliddermouse, or, as in the eastern 

 division of Sussex, flindermouse (from the High-German fleder- 

 maus), does not, to my knowledge, occur. In the Midland 

 counties it is often known as " leathern wings " (compare 

 ledermus) ; and thus, Shakspeare, with his large vocabulary, 

 using up every phrase and metaphor which he ever met, makes 

 Titania say of her fairies : 



" Some war with rear- mice for their leathern wings." 



(Midsummer Fight's Dream, Act ii., sc. 3.) 



To take a few words common, not only to the New Forest, 

 but to various parts of the West of England, we shall see how 

 strong is the Old-English element here in the common speech. 

 The housewife still baits (betan, literally to repair, and so, when 



* Apology for Smectymnus, quoted by Richardson. The word is even 

 ued by Locke. 



f Miss Gurney, in her Glossary of Norfolk Words, gives ' ranny " as a 

 shrew-mouse. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 35. The 

 change of e into a is worth noticing, as illustrative of what was said in the 

 previous chapter, p. 167, of the pronunciation of the West-Saxon. 



192 



