Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/105

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ii s. i. JAX. 29, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


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Asiatic partridge, or attagen : vulgarly called, the gor-cock, the moor-cock, or red- jgamo." And Neuman's ' New Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages,* 1802, has: " Francolin, the African or Indian partridge (Tetrao Francolinus, X.inn.)." All the Spanish-English diction- aries since 1802 I have consulted repeat Xeuman's statement. Now the godwit belongs to the family Scolopacidse, but the francolin belongs to the family Tetraonidse. Hence the birds mentioned above by Mr. Roosevelt were not godwits, but partridges, or of that family.

If however, Mr. Roosevelt speaks of a

  • ' franklin," I would ask MB. MACMICHAEL

to tell us where. ALBERT MATTHEWS.

Boston, U.S.

MB. MACMICHAEL is still in error. The birds reported by Mr. Roosftvelt as seen by him on his railway journey he does not speak of shooting them, and the circum- stances denote the contrary were not

  • ' franklins," but francolins. Despite both

Halliwell's definition of " frankline " as a godwit, with his implied derivation, and that of " Percivall's ' Sp. Diet.' '* the name

  • ' francolin " is now confined to a bird very

different from the gralline godwit. Franco- lins form a sub -family of gallinaceous birds allied to the partridge, Francolinus vulgaris being called both the " black francolin " and the '" black partridge." They are more or less frequently found in the warmer parts of Europe and Asia, but are chiefly African. The name " partridge " as given to a bird is common enough here, but none of the partridge - like birds of America can be classed with the Old World species, and francolins are wholly unknown.

Mr. Roosevelt, therefore, instead of having been accustomed to the name at home, had learnt it from books, perhaps, but more immediately from his companions, Mr. Selous and Governor Jackson, ;i to whom the terri- tory and the game were alike familiar."

Godwits, of the Scolopacidae or snipe family, we have here, certainly. The species mentioned by MB. MACMICHAEL at the last reference, now technically called Limosa fedoa, and commonly the " marbled godwit " and " brown marlin," is the largest of its kind, being from seventeen to twenty inches long. The Hudsonian godwit is smaller, or about fifteen inches in length. Both species are occasional, if rare visitants in spring and fall, as far south as the New Jersey coast, but they are nowhere called " franklins. 1 *


It is therefore impossible that Lowell's ' franklin " meant a bird unknown to him by that name, incongruously placed in his cheerless inn-parlour, instead of designating the open but fireless Franklin stove, still in October left in its summer garniture of faded green which every reader of that day resident in New England or the Middle States would recognize as a familiar thing. M. C. L.

New York.

ST. MABGABET'S, WESTMINSTER, THE EAST WINDOW (10 S. xii. 269, 357, 453 ; 11 S. i. 15). M. P. contributed to The Essex Review for April, 1908, a long account of this picture. After relating the history of the picture he says :

"The side-lights are occupied by portraits of Henry VII. and his Queen, Elizabeth of York, copied from original pictures sent to Dort for the purpose. Over the King is the picture of St. George, and above him a white rose within a red one. Over the Queen stands St. Catherine, and in a panel above her is a pomegranate vert on a field or, the arms of Granada, to denote the descent of York and Lancaster from the royal families of Spain, by the marriages of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his brother Edmond, Duke of York. It has also been said that the window was intended to be commemorative of the marriage of Prince Arthur with Katharine of Arragon."

J. S.

Oxford.

Both Pennant and Hughson (Pugh) have misled MB. WM. NOBMAN by not completing the first sentence they transcribed from the appendix to ' Ornaments of Churches Considered,' &c., 1761. The window was intended to adorn Henry VII. 's magnificent chapel then building at Westminster, " King Henry and his Queen sending their pictures to Dort, from whence their portraits in the window are delineated. 1

The kneeling figure has not been, and cannot be, identified as Henry VI. or Henry VIII., but it might be Prince Arthur, because there are more probabilities that the queen kneeling is Katharine of Aragon than Elizabeth of York.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

SELBY, YOBKS : ITS " PECULIAB ll COUBT AND PABISH REGISTEBS (10 S. xii. 409, 475 ; 11 S. i. 37). At Salisbury the transcripts of the Registers of the Peculiars were deposited in the Dean's Registry, where they still are, and not in the Diocesan Registry. A. R. MALDEN.

" WHELPS " AS A NAME FOB BROKEN WATEB (11 S. i. 29). Explained in the right book, the ' E.D.D.,' which has : " Hessle whelps, the water of a part of the Humber