REPORTS. 435 



stood still and showed signs of great alarm. He got out of 

 his gig, and went to the animal's head to pat and encourage 

 it. Then he noticed these spirals of whirling dust in the road, 

 and the mystery Avas made clear. Herodias was passing, the 

 horse saw her, and refused to budge. My informant seemed 

 to think that most likelv Salome was there, too — probably 

 also bearing her ghastly guerdon on some spectral charger — 

 and he opined that it was the presence of this terrible trio 

 that had so greatly frightened his unfortimate horse. 



Several years ago when the late Mr. Andrew Tuer — who 

 was then a well-known author and publisher in London — was 

 preparing his interesting work on " The Hii>tory of the Horn 

 BooJi,^^ he wrote to me to ask if I could give him any 

 information about the former use of Horn Books in 

 Guernsey. As I possessed no knoAvledge myself on the 

 subject, I called on Sir Edgar MacCulloch and asked him. 

 He told me that he had never heard of any Horn Books being- 

 used in this Island, which was rather strange, seeing that for 

 so many years they were very generally used in England. 



Probably most of the members are conversant with the 

 general appearance and characteristics of these old Horn 

 Books. There are several antique S])ecimens of them among 

 the educational collections at South Kensington. The Horn 

 Book was the old-fashioned school-primer, by means of Avhich 

 the alphabet. Sec, Avas formerly taught to children. It 

 remained in use in most parts of England until the end of the 

 18th century. It consisted of a kind of oblong Avooden frame 

 Avith a handle projecting from one side — the Avhole being in 

 shape something like a battledore. Then in this frame Avas 

 inserted a single small sheet of paper, upon Avhich were 

 printed the alphabet — in capital and small letters — the Lord's 

 ])rayer, the Koman and Arabic numerals, and usually also a 

 fcAv simple words of one syllable. The front of this printed 

 sheet was covered with a thin plate of transparent horn 

 intended to keep the paper clean. Hence the name. The 

 figure of a cross was also usually prefixed to the alphabet, 

 and this sign gave rise to the expression : the Criss cross roAV, 

 or Christ's cross row, by Avhich term various Old English 

 writers frequently designate the alphabet. 



J. LixAVOOi) Pitts, Sec. Folklore Sect. 



Report of Section for Marine Zoology. 



During the past year practically all the outdoor AA^ork 

 in this branch of our Society has been done by two of the 



