Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/166

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NOTES AND QUERIES. L9< s. n. AUG. 20, m


small water-snakes. By placing the bundle of hukka stems on the patient's head, the exiled prince ascertains the location of the snakes, and after that their removal is a simple matter. A translation of the passage from the original Persian may be found in Elliot's ' History of India by its own His- torians,' vol. i. p. 221. S. WHEELER.

THE CHURCH (?) AT SILCHESTER (9 th S. ii. 101). In connexion with MR. ST. CLAIR BADDELEY'S very interesting paper about the church (?) floor at Silchester, he and others of your readers may be reminded of the dis- covery of a tessellated floor, partly like it, a hundred years ago. This floor seems not to have received of late the attention which it deserves. It is at Frampton, near Dorchester, but is covered up out of sight. It is 21 ft. square, and has pagan inscriptions. On the south side it is extended into a semicircular apse. In the middle of the straight side of


this is the


It is needless to go into


further description, because there is a folio monograph on the subject, entitled " Figures of Mosaic Pavements discovered near Framp- ton, in Dorsetshire. Sold by J. White, &c. 1808." How is it that tessellated floors abound in the south, while there are none along the Wall that there are almost no Roman in- scribed stones in the south-west and hundreds in the north ? H. J. MOULE.

Dorchester.

On this interesting subject some corre- spondence took place in the Church Times, 16 and 23 December, 1892, q.v. W. C. B.

PATCHES (9 th S. i. 347; ii. 73). ST. S WITHIN remarks that patches are called mouches in France. During my recent visit to Zululand, I found the one small patch worn around the waist (about the size of one's hand) by the practically naked Zulu people is called a nimichie. HARRY HEMS.

Fair Park, Exeter.

BERTOLINI'S HOTEL, ST. MARTIN'S STREET (9 th S. ii. 106). When I was a boy, in the forties, it was one of my holiday treats to dine with my father at Bertolini's, which had been a bachelor haunt of his. The savoury dishes of ravioli and other Italian confections which Madame Bertolini would on such occa- sions prepare with her own fair hands for my behoof still linger in my memory.

Though a reference to the London direc- tories of forty or fifty years ago will show that MR. HEBB is correct in his statement that Bertolini's was No. 34, St. Martin's Street, it was a tradition of the house that it


had been formerly occupied by Sir Isaac Newton, and it was probably on the strength of this tradition that it bore the alternative designation of " Newton's Hotel." It was in communicating some old reminiscences of the place to Mr. Austin Dobson that I mentioned that the identity of Bertolini's with Newton's house was amongst my boyish recollections, and I therefore take this opportunity of say- ing that for the statement in the Sketch of 22 June I must be held answerable, and of expressing my regret that my incapacity to distinguish between tradition and fact should have led to a slight deviation from accuracy.

W. F. PRIDE AUX. 45, Pall Mall, S.W.

LOCHWINNOCH, IN RENFREWSHIRE (9 th S. ii.

26, 115). I have notes of two definitions of the name : (1) From St. Winnoc, or Winning an Irish evangelist reputed to have landed in Ayrshire in 715, and to have founded a church at Kilwinning, where four hundred years afterwards a splendid abbey was built, dedicated to SS. Winning and Mary. An old chapel near the town of Lochwinnoch was dedicated to the saint. Lochwinnoch is about nine miles from Kilwinning, and before the present spelling was finally adopted the name was written in about forty different ways. In 1158 it was spelt Lochynoc, and to this day is locally pronounced Lochinyoch. (2) The latter part might be the genitive innich of the Celtic innis, an island. There is a small island in the loch.

W. M. GRAHAM EASTON.

" ANIGOSANTHUS " (9 th S. ii. 7, 99). I note that Johnson's ' Gardening Dictionary,' edited by Wright and Dewar, gives avoiyw, to expand, as the derivation of the first part of the word. Such a derivation accords well with the habit of the flower, and seems to be much more probable than that given by MR. LYNN. W. B.

SOLEBY, co. LEICESTER (9 th S. ii. 89). Pro- bably the Soleby mentioned by S. will be Shoby, given in Speed's map, 1676, as Shouldby, in East Goscote hundred, about four miles and a half north-west of Melton Mowbray. Due west of the same place is Syleby. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

This is probably Sileby, near Mount Sorrel. I also see a name Sywoldeby in the 'Calendar of Leicestershire Wills ' now being issued by the British Record Society ; but this may be only an old form of spelling of Sileby.

- E. A. FRY.

17'2j Edmund Street, Birmingham.