SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 229 



in his walk, or " I see'd him a-coming, but he ' dackered ' a good bit as he 

 came along," that is, advanced in an uncertain and hesitating manner. 

 Speaking of a horse in a steeplechase, " he ' dackered ' at bis fence, and 

 down he came." May not the word " daker," as applied to the Corn Crake, 

 be a corruption, or another form, of this provincialism having reference to its 

 apparent uncertain advance, as expressed in the ventriloquous call-notes, 

 now here, now there, sometimes close to the listener, and then again at a 

 distance ? So that in time country folks, always quick and ready enough 

 to note any peculiarity in the animal-life around them, would know it as 

 the " dacker " or " daker-hen," the bird which " dackers " in its walk or 

 advance. — John Cokdeaux (Great Cotes, Ulceby). 



[The verb " to dacker," with the signification " to waver, stagger, or 

 totter," is given in Ray's ' Collection of North-Country Words,' where it is 

 especially referred to as in use in Lincolnshire. Jamieson also, in his ' Scottish 

 Dictionary,' gives the verb " to daker " or " daiker " as in use in Scotland. 

 We scarcely think, however, that this offers the right explanation of the 

 name " Daker-hen." A more probable origin, as recently suggested to us, 

 is the Scandinavian Ar/er hone, i.e., " field-hen," it being in accordance with 

 rule that the " g " of the one language should become the " k " of the 

 other. The initial " D," difficult otherwise to be accounted for, is doubtless 

 a corruption of " T," an abbreviation of " the." In the North of England 

 we often hear the expression " t'ould man " for " the old man " ; and thus 

 we have " t'acre hen " for " the acre hen." — En.l 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Linnean Society of London. 



March 18, 1883.— Frank Crisp, LL.B., Treasurer and Vice-President, 

 in the chair. 



Professor T. S. Cobbold read a paper on Simondsia paradoxa and its 

 probable affinity with Spharularia bombi. Thirty years ago Professor 

 Simonds discovered a remarkable parasite within cysts in the stomach of a 

 Wild Boar which died in the Zoological Gardens, Loudon. This he 

 regarded as a species of Strongylus, but Dr. Cobbold, in 1864, suggested its 

 affinity with the genus Spiroptera, and named it Simondsia. The original 

 drawings were unfortunately for a time mislaid, and have only lately been 

 found along with the specimens, enabling Dr. Cobbold to investigate them 

 more closely. He has now arrived at the conclusion that Simondsia is 

 a genus of endoparasitic nematodes, in which the female is encysted, and 

 furnished with an external and much-enlarged uterus, whose walls expand 

 into branches terminating in caeca. The male is half an inch, and the 

 female six-tenths of an inch in length. It now appears that what was at 

 first mistaken for the head is in fact the tail, so that the supposed 



