158 CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 



We hope it will not be a long time before you and Mrs. 

 White favour us with your company at South Lambeth. My 

 father would be obliged to you to bring him some roots of 

 the Arundo donax with you*. 



Mr. B. White told me he had answered your query about 

 Dugdale. I am glad to hear Mr. Dusueloy has been so 

 successful in his trial with the farmer, who, by all accounts, 

 behaved in a most unpardonable manner to him. The en- 

 closed card relating to " Sic " my father found in his drawer 

 the other day, and sends you. The following passages are 

 from Pezron's 'Antiquities of Nations:' — "The Spartans 

 called a swine sic, in Greek cuca ; and the Celtae and their 

 posterity even now when they hunt that animal use no other 

 word than sic, sic." " Sicatok. This anciently signified a small 

 hog, and is taken from sica, in old times a hog; and all of 

 them came from the Celtick sic, that denotes the same thing ; 

 and hence the Romans rightly enough called those stars su- 

 cula which now-a-days are placed in the head of Taurus, and 

 were named 'v a8e? (porcelli) by the Grecians ; for you must 

 observe that the word is derived from f ve?, sues, porci, and 

 not from 'veiv, pluere, to rain, as the Greeks would have it, 

 and as 'tis generally taken to be derived at this day. 'Tis 

 very likely that that knot of stars that are about the other 

 part of Taurus had formed another name in the Northern 

 barbarian sphear, which was the first and ancientest of any ; 

 for I shall shew in another place that the Grecians borrowed 

 it of them, but added to and made great alterations in it." 

 My father and mother desire to be remembered to you. 

 I am, dear Uncle, 



Your affectionate Niece, 



MARY WHITE. 



[The plant here alluded to was sent to Gilbert White by his brother 

 John from Gibraltar. The original is still flourishing on my lawn. — 

 T. B.] 



