410 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



This is usually interpreted " rosy," but it is obvious that " gray" 

 is equally appropriate, and indeed Mr. Marshall (v. s. vol. viii. 

 p. 96) says: — "Every one who has kept watch out of doors 

 all through the night knows that grey light which is the first 

 precursor of morning, after which comes, if it comes at all, the 

 red and golden colour"; and he proceeds to quote the lines in 

 'Much Ado about Nothing' (Act v. sc. 3) : — 



" The gentle day, 



Before the wheels of Phoebus round about 

 Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray," 



and the line in ' Borneo and Juliet' (Act iii. sc. 5) : — 



" I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye." 



Such is the evidence ; the reader must draw his own conclusion. 



I take the following from Fairholt's 'Costume in England' 

 (ed. 1885, vol. ii. p. 354) :— 



"Russet. Reddish-brown or grey .... Florio, in voce ' Roraagnuolo,' 

 describes [the material] as a kind of coarse homespun ' sheepe's russet 

 cloth, called frier's cloth, or shepheard's clothing.' Peacham, speaking of 

 countrymen in 1658, says, ' Most of them wear russet, and have their shoes 

 well nailed.' Gray russet is mentioued in Delony's ' Pleasant Historie of 

 Thomas of Reading' [1612J, as the ordinary garb of country-folks; and 

 when Simon's wife, in this tale, complains that 'the London oyster-wives, 

 and the very kitchen-stuffe cryers, doe exceed us in their attire,' her 

 husband tells her, 'We are country-folks, and must keepe ourselves in good 

 compasse ; gray russet and good hempe-spun cloth doth best become us.' 

 In the ballad of a ' Courtier and Countiy Clown,' in Durfey's collection, the 

 latter says : — 



1 Your clothes are made of silk and sattin, 

 And ours are made of good sheep's grey.' 



• In homely gray, instead of bisse [bice] and purest palle, 

 Now all thy clothing must be.' 



Patient Grissel, 1619." 



In connexion with his contention that russet is equivalent to 

 gray, Mr. Marshall, in the note on the present passage above 

 referred to, directs attention to two long notes of his on the 

 subject in 'Notes and Queries' (6th series, vol. ix. pp. 345, 470), 

 to a note by Professor Newton in the same volume (p. 396), and to 

 another by Mr.W. Aldis Wright, withdrawing his adoption of Prof. 

 Newton's view (vol. x. p. 499), and continues, "Of the passages 



