10 s. x. OCT. 24, loos.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
327
mates that scon better represents the old
pronunciation.
I see no reason for doubting that scon represents the Mid. Dan. skon-roggen, which Kalkar explains as a bun or cake of bolted flour. This is not a true Danish word, but borrowed from the Low G. schoon-roggen, called in Hamburg schon-roggen, where it meant a three-cornered loaf or bun ; lit. " fine rye," from schoon, schdn, fine, and roggen, rye. The interesting point is that the true scon is three-cornered still. It is also still schdn. WALTER W. SKEAT.
DICKENS' s SURNAMES : GUPPY. In con- nexion with the discussion on the manner in which Dickens discovered names for characters in ' The Pickwick Papers ' (10 S. ix. 427 ; x. 10, 52, 113, 216), it may interest your readers to know that some time ago a correspondent of The Daily Graphic con- tended that Dickens procured the name of Guppy, which he gave to the lawyer's clerk in ' Bleak House,' in the following manner. Dickens and Macready were walking along the main street of Sherborne in Dorsetshire when they passed a door bearing the name of Guppy on a brass plate. Dickens entered the name in his notebook, and not long after- wards it appeared in the celebrated novel just mentioned.
As a descendant of the Guppys of Wiltshire (my grandmother having been a Guppy), I may mention that it is a Walloon name, and was originally spelt Goupe. Dr. Smiles in his ' Huguenots in England and Ireland ' says : " The Walloon Goupes, who settled in Wiltshire as clothmakers more than 300 years since, are still known there as the Guppys."
EDWARD JB. WORTLEY MOXHAM.
Hounslow.
OWL FOLK-LORE IN INDIA. The following extract from The Zoologist of 1848 may interest those of your readers who study the folk-lore of birds or popular medicine. It is signed S. C. Malan :
"About the middle of February, 1839, one of my servants brought me a nest of five owlets, apparently two or three days old, which had been found by men at work in the house I then occupied in the
neighbourhood of Calcutta. The native while
bringing me the owlets, begged my leave to keep them. His request surprised me the more as I was aware of the superstitious dread with which owls are looked upon by the natives of India; and I asked him what he could do with them. ' I shall pound them, sir,' was his answer. ' Pound them ! what for ? ' ' Why, sir, to make a plaister of them : it is good against sickness.'" First Series, vol. vi. p. 2140.
A. O. V. P.
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' PUNCH ' EXHIBITION. The proprietors
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W. LAWRENCE BRADBURY.
BRITISH ENVOY AT WARSAW IN 1774. I have seen in some German book a mention of an interesting letter written by the British envoy at Warsaw in 1774, but without any reference, and even without the name of the envoy. I wish to know his name, and the work or series in which his letters, dispatches, or reports have been published.
H. GAIDOZ.
22, Rue Servandoni, Paris (VI e ).
MISSING WORD. There is an English word which has escaped my memory. Owing to its striking significance, it is well worth remembering, and I have set my heart upon recovering it, regardless of any amount of trouble, and ask for help from your readers.
The word in question fits the following description : a compound noun, consisting of two or three words, having two meanings : a literal and a figurative one. Literally it means killing, a shot, a freebooter, or some- thing like it anyhow a bad character ; figuratively it denotes a " person little or unknown." I came across the word in a periodical, and have actually seen it in my big dictionary. It is by its literal meaning
