NOTES AND QUERIES. 313 



There were at least three birds, two males and one female, of which I had 

 a good view. The nest of one pair was found, and consistsd of a slight 

 mat of dried sedge, with a few small sticks, about two inches thick, round 

 the outer edge. It was of an oval form, measuring 18 inches by 12 inches, 

 with a slight rounded depression in the centre 6 inches across, in which 

 were three eggs. — F. E. Swainson (Jesus College, Cambridge). 



Crane in Suffolk. — An adult Crane, Grus cinereus, in somewhat 

 abraded plumage, but apparently a wild bird, was shot at Benacre Hall, 

 near Lowestoft (Sir Alfred Gooch's place), on the 27th of June last, and 

 is at present in the hands of Mr. Bunn, taxidermist, Lowestoft, for 

 preservation. — E. Butler (Herringfleet Hall, Lowestoft). 



INSECTS. 



Origin of the Name " Dor-beetle."— I have looked into a good many 

 entomological works with a view to ascertain the origin of the name " Dor- 

 beetle," but without success. The popular impression seems to be that the 

 name is derived from the sound produced by the insect when on the 

 wing. Ogilvie, in his ' Imperial Dictionary ' (ed. 1882), gives " Dor, dorr, 

 from A.S. dora, drone," and adds: — " The name is probably imitative of 

 the sound the insect makes." Under the heading " Dormouse," Professor 

 Skeat, in his Etymological Dictonary,' observes : — " The prefix is from a 

 prov. E, dor, to sleep, appearing in dorrer, a sleeper, or lazy person." A 

 very different interpretation is that given by Archdeacon Nares, in his 

 1 Glossary ' (1822). " To give the dor," he says, "is to make a fool of a 

 person ; to pass a joke upon him or to outwit him." The word is used in 

 this sense by Fletcher (' Purple Island,' v. 4 ; vii. 25), and by Ben Jonson 

 (Bart. Fair. - iv. 2), in the line: — " Here he comes, whistle; be this sport 

 called dorring the dott'rel." This, to an ornithologist, is a very suggestive 

 line, in view of the ancient method of outwitting dotterels, for it conveys a 

 hint that the expression in regard to the daring of larks, used by Shake- 

 speare (Hen. VIII. iii. 2) and others, may be a corruption of dorring. But 

 to return to the dor-beetle. Halliwell, in his ' Dictionary of Archaic and 

 Provincial Words,' has " dor, a drone or beetle," and " to dor or to give the 

 dor, to make a fool of one, corresponding to the modern hum, to deceive." 

 But there is yet another and a very different explanation which has been 

 offered by Mr. R. G. Haliburton, incidentally, in some ' Notes on a Tau 

 Cross on the Badge of a Medicine Man of the Queen Charlotte Isles.' Mr. 

 Haliburton says this badge is noteworthy, as Queen Charlotte Isles form 

 one of the most isolated groups of the Northern Pacific. They lie off the 

 west coast of British Columbia. This symbol was used by the Indians on 

 large sheets of copper, to which they assigned a high value, and each of 

 which they called a Tau. The connection of that name with the symbol 



ZOOLOGIST. — AUGUST, 1892. 2 B 



