*Spurling-boards. Boards set to prevent the corn from flying out of the threshing-floor (D.).
Spur-stone. A projecting stone, set in the ground as a support to a post, or to protect anything near the roadway (Bevis, ch. v).
*Squab. The youngest or weakest bird of a brood or pig of a litter (A.). The 'darling' of a litter.—N.W. (Lockeridge.)
Squail, Sqwoil. (1) To throw (A.H.S.); used of sticks, not stones.—N. & S.W.
'In the orchard Bevis and Mark squailed at the pears with short sticks.'—Bevis, ch. xvi.
'They would like to squail a stick at his high and ancient hat.'—Ibid. ch. xvi.
(2) Fig. To do a thing awkwardly (H.), as 'Her went up the street a squailing her arms about.'—N.W. *(3) Cock-squoilin, throwing at cocks at Shrovetide (A.).—Obsolete. Bird-squoilin, killing birds with stones (S.). (4) Of a candle, to gutter.—N. & S.W.
Squailer, Squale, Squoile. A stick or loaded cane, used by boys for throwing at apples, rabbits, squirrels, &c.—N. & S.W.
'The handle of a "squailer" projected from Orion's coat-pocket. For making a squailer a tea-cup was the best mould:... A ground ash sapling with the bark on, about as thick as the little finger, pliant and tough, formed the shaft, which was about fifteen inches long. This was held upright in the middle of a tea-cup, while the mould was filled with molten lead. It soon cooled, and left a heavy conical knob on the end of the stick. If rightly thrown it was a deadly missile, and would fly almost as true as a rifle ball. A rabbit or leveret could thus be knocked over; and it was peculiarly adapted for fetching a squirrel out of a tree, because, being so heavy at one end, it rarely lodged on the boughs, as an ordinary stick would, but overbalanced and came down.'—Amateur Poacher, ch. iii.
'The "squaler" came into use very early in the school's history, and was for years almost as much a part of the ordinary equipment of a Marlborough boy as a cricket-bat would now be. To later generations the very name probably conveys no meaning. The weapon itself was simple enough, though extremely formidable. It consisted of a piece of lead something the shape and about the size of a pear, with a cane handle about eighteen inches long. A squaler could be thrown a great distance and with terrific force, and at short ranges by the practised hands of the Marlburians of those days with great accuracy. Its ostensible purpose was squirrel-hunting, as the name suggests [No, it is not a contraction of "squirreller," but is from squail, to throw.—G.E.D.], but it came in handy for the larger quarry which the more adventurous tribes pursued and slew, such as rabbits, hares, and very frequently even deer. It lingered on as an article of local sale till the middle of the sixties; but ... was made contraband, and finally died out.'—History of Marlborough College, ch. ix. p. 94.
'To make a squailer you provide yourself with an eighteen-inch length of half-inch cane, two inches of which you sheath with tow and then insert in a ladle of molten lead. There you manipulate it in such sort that there is presently left to cool at the end of your cane a pear-shaped lump of lead of the weight experience has shown you to be proper. With this weapon an adept can bring down a squirrel from on high, or stop one on the level at five-and-twenty yards, almost to a certainty.'—W. F. Waller in Notes & Queries, 8th series, ii. p. 197. 'Another Marlborough mode of making it is to pour the melted lead into a cone composed of many folds of well-wetted paper, tied round the slightly notched upper end of the cane or ground ash.'—G. E. Dartnell in N. & Q., 8th series, ii. p. 257. Also see various letters in N. & Q., 8th series, ii. pp. 149, 197, 257. Squailers were in use at the Grammar school as well as at the College, up to about 1867.
Squailing. Clumsy, badly, or irregularly shaped, as 'a squailing loaf,' 'a squailing sort of a town,' &c. (H.).—N.W.