I cannot quite make out what it was that misled the pupil in the following instances; it would not seem to have been the sound of the word, nor the look of it in print:

Asphyxia, a grumbling, fussy temper.

Quarternions, a bird with a flat beak and no bill, living in New Zealand.

Quarternions, the name given to a style of art practised by the Phœnicians.

Quarternions, a religious convention held every hundred years.

Sibilant, the state of being idiotic.

Crosier, a staff carried by the Deity.

In the following sentences the pupil’s ear has been deceiving him again:

The marriage was illegible.

He was totally dismasted with the whole performance.