Latin Inscription on Lindsey Court-house (Vol. ix., pp. 492. 552.).—I cannot but express my surprise at the learned (?) trifling of some of your correspondents on the inscription upon Lindsey Court-house. Try it thus:
"Fiat Justitia,
1619,
Hæc domus
Odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat,
Nequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos."
which will make two lines, an hexameter and a pentameter, the first letters, O and N, having perhaps been effaced by time or accident.
Neglectus.
[That this emendation is the right one is clear from the communication of another correspondent, B. R. A. Y., who makes the same, and adds in confirmation, "The following lines existed formerly (and do, perhaps, now) on the Market-house at Much Wenlock, Shropshire, which will explain their meaning:
'Hic locus
Odit, amat, punit, conservat, honorat,
Nequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos.'
The O and N, being at the beginning of the lines as given by your correspondent, were doubtless obliterated by age.">[
The restoration of this inscription proposed by me is erroneous, and must be corrected from the perfect inscription as preserved at Pistoia and Much Wenlock, cited by another correspondent in p. 552. The three inscriptions are slightly varied. Perhaps "amat pacem" is better than "amat leges," on account of the tautology with "conservat jura."
L.
Myrtle Bee (Vol. ix., p. 205. &c.).—"I have carefully read and reread the articles on the myrtle bee, and I can come to no other conclusion than that it is not a bird at all, but an insect, one of the hawkmoths, and probably the humming-bird hawkmoth. We have so many indefatigable genuine field naturalists, picking up every straggler which is blown to our coasts, that I cannot think it possible there is a bird at all common to any district of England, and yet totally unknown to science. Now, insects are often exceedingly abundant in particular localities, yet scarcely known beyond them. The size C. Brown describes as certainly not larger than half that of the common wren. The humming-bird (H. M.) is scarcely so large as this, but its vibratory motion would make it look somewhat larger than it really is. Its breadth, from tip to tip of the wings, is twenty to twenty-four lines. The myrtle bee's "short flight is rapid, steady, and direct," exactly that of the hawkmoth. The tongue of the myrtle bee is "round, sharp, and pointed at the end, appearing capable of penetration," not a bad popular description of the suctorial trunk of the hawkmoth, from which it gains its generic name, Macroglossa. Its second pair of wings are of a rusty yellow colour, which, when closed, would give it it the appearance of being "tinged with yellow about the vent." It has also a tuft of scaly hairs at the extremity of the abdomen, which would suggest the idea of a tail. In fact, on the wing, it appears very like a little bird, as attested by its common name. In habit it generally retires from the mid-day sun, which would account for its being "put up" by the dogs. The furze-chat, mentioned by C. Brown, is the Saxicola rubetra, commonly also called the whinchat.