98 Commander Carpenter — Swatch of no ground. [July, 



2. " The Swatch of no ground. — By Commander Alfred Carpenter, 

 R. N., in charge of Marine Szirvey of India. Communicated by the 

 Natural History Secretary. 

 This paper, which is too brief to admit of being given in abstract, 



will be published in full in the Journal, Part II, No. 2 for the current 



year. 



3. A Coincidence in Folh-lore. — By the Rev. Charles Swynnerton. 

 When in Naples a few months ago I bought in Italian at a book- 

 stall a copy of the Liher Facetiarum of that learned and eccentric 

 ecclesiastic of the fifteenth century, Poggio Bracciolini of Florence, 

 who was one of the brightest ornaments of a period which produced 

 Lorenzo de Medici, Traversari, Bruni, and Politiano, and which first 

 introduced the literary treasures of the ancient Greeks to the nations of 

 West. This, the last edition of Poggio's most remarkable work, was 

 published in Rome in January of the present year, and my object in 

 noticing it here is to record a very singular concidence which subsists 

 between one of his facezie, and a fable which is found among the wild 

 Afghan tribes of our North- West frontier, and which is frequently quoted 

 by the village gossips in ridicule of the gross stupidity of the hill-men 

 of Baner. This fable or rather anecdote appears as Story XV in my 

 lately published volume entitled " The Adventures of Raja Rasalu and 

 other Folk-tales of the Upper Panjab," and in order to show the 

 singularly close resemblance between the two stories I cannot do better 

 than quote them in parallel columns, the one in English and the other 

 in Italian. 



Story XV. Facizia LIX. 



The Baneyri and his drowned wife. Di un uomo che cercava sua moglie 



annegata nel flume. 



There was once a sudden flood in Un altr' uomo, cui era morta la 



the Indus, which washed away moglie nel fiume, andava contr'- 



numbers of people, and, among acqua a ricercarne il cadavere. 



others, the wife of a certain Ba- Uno che lo vide rimase di cio me- 



neyri. The distracted husband was ravigliato e lo consiglio di andar 



wanderino- along the banks of the secondo la corrente : — " In questo 



river looking for the dead body, modo," rispose I'uomo, " non po- 



when a countryman accosted him trebbe trovarsi ; perche quando 



W^Yi^ : " Friend, if, as I am in- visse fu tanto contraddiccente, e 



formed, your wife has been carried difficile, e contraria alle abitudine 



away in the flood, she must have degli altri, che anche dopo morte 



floated down the stream with the essa andra contro la corrente del 



rest of the bodies; yet, you are fiume." 



