Insect-bites, p. 159. There are many English people, also, whom insects never bite. It is common when travellers in Italy are lamenting the ravages of fleas and mosquitoes to hear now and then one person say, "They never bite me!"—probably owing to some idiosyncrasy of skin or blood. The Indian woman in the same case thought it due to a supernatural cause.
Peacock's Feathers, p. 179. I have met various people who object to have the peacock's-feather fans, &c., now so much in vogue, in their houses because they consider them unlucky.
By a curious coincidence, the very day before I saw the Cornish tradition at p. 177 about birdcages and beehives being tied with crêpe at the death of the owner, an old French friend had happened to mention to me that up to the time he left home [Normandy] (and perhaps ever since) it was the custom to tie a bit of black cloth on the henhouses when the proprietor died, as it was thought the fowls would all die. R. H. Busk.
Sindbad (ante, p. 60). The Egyptian variant of Sindbad to which Mr. Fenton refers is translated by M. Maspéro in his Contes populaires de l'Egypte Ancienne (Maisonneuve, 1882), and is fully discussed in the introduction (pp. lxx. etc.)
QUERIES.
Proverbs. Could any of your readers reply to the following questions:—Are there any translations of Welsh proverbs besides those published by Howel in the reign of Charles II.? or is there any collection of Welsh proverbs published?
Is there any collections of Irish proverbs besides those of Burke's, or of the Ulster Society? J. Long.
