222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



cassis, which Isidore says means a helmet. The analogy of cassita, 

 the crested or tufted lark, would give " plume " rather than helmet 

 as the meaning, the helmet being merely the plume-bearer. In 

 Basque egaiz is a feather ; ejazti, plumed, covered with feathers. 

 ^But there is another form isats, which now denotes, equally with 

 egatz, a fin, and is also applied to a small feather bi'ush without a 

 handle. These two forms, egatz, the guttural, and isats, the sibilant, 

 point to an original chatz or chas, whence the Latin cassis, a plume 

 or plumed helmet. The Circassian kutz, a feather, retains a better 

 form of the word than the Basque. The Choctaw has hishi and 

 hoshishi, but the Japanese applies the corresponding gushi exclusi\'ely 

 to the hair. In many Khitan languages, as in the Choctaw, the 

 same word denotes hair, feathers, and leaves. 



Saturninus is a case of " first catch your hare." What word does 

 it intend to set foi'th, sator, sat-ir, satura, Saturmis, Saturni sacra 

 dies 1 I find the initial chiag or izag in the augurial templum of 

 Piacenza forming chiag-sarasaba and kiisapino-chiag. As the tem- 

 plum is astronomical in chai'acter, Chiag-Noitchio may denote the 

 planet Saturn. Thei'e is room here for wide conjecture, and a 

 foundation perhaps for a system of Etruscan mythology. The word 

 Noitchio may equally be read Anichio. Unhappily, little or no 

 mythology has been preserved by the Basques. 



The last of the bilinguals is one not generally regarded as such, 

 the whole having been i-ead as Etruscan. The first line, however, is 

 Latin, the two names being feminine, and the last probably in the 

 ablative case. 



Fabretti 949. ARIA • BASSA 



ARNTHAL • FRAVNAL 



artu kaku karasu egiatei'be karasa 



artu gogo Karasu Egi-Aterbe sortze 



to keep memory Karasu Egi-Aterbe nata 



The Latin names are still puzzling. The scribe evidently trans- 

 lated the Etruscan into Latin or Greek in his own mind, and then 

 cast about him for a Latin name having some likeness to the 

 translation. If Aria stand for Aeria, the only modern Basque word 

 answering to it and approaching karasu is egurastu, a^rer, exposer 

 au jour. It is a compound of egun, day, which in Lesghian is kini. 

 I very much doubt that karasu is eguraz. It is strange that the 

 Japanese equivalent of egurastu should be sarasu. The name I give 



