FRANCISCUS.
It is hardly so impossible to identify the animals mentioned by your correspondent J. B. as he supposes. Glead is the A.-S. glida or kite, though, in our version of Deut. xiv. 13., both glede and kite are mentioned. Ringteal or ringtail is the female of the Circus cyaneus or hen-harrier, another species of falcon. Greas' head and baggar refer to the same animal (the badger), for there is no wonder that a scribe who writes greas' head for gray's head should write also baggar for badger. This latter animal has a variety of names by which he is known in one and the same district, e.g. gray or graye, bawson or bowson, brock and badger, and in our churchwardens' accounts these names occur indiscriminately. I hope some one will be able to point out the origin of paying for the destruction of these animals out of the parochial funds; I have frequently searched without success such authorities as I have access to. The earliest entry of the kind in the books of this parish (which date from 1520) is in 1583.
I subjoin a few extracts, which afford a curious instance of the respective prices put upon the heads of these animals at a time when such entries occur; as,
| 1587 for ij dyverse p'achers | for iij sermones | iijsiiijd. | |
| ——— | ——— | ——— | |
| 1583 It[=m] for | iiij fox heads | xvjd | |
| 1586 — | ij fox heads | ijs | |
| 1589 — | catte heades | iiijd | |
| 1590 — | xij bulspyncke (bulfinch) heades. | vjd | |
| " — | vj crowe heades | jd | |
| " — | an urchen (hedghog) heade | ijd | |
| 1596 — | a grayes head | vjd | |
| 1620 — | a bawson head | xijd | |
| 1621 — | tow fox cub heads | xijd | |
| " — | vij hedghoge heads | xiiijd | |
| 1626 — | a wylde catt head | ijd | |
| 1736 — | an otter head | xijd | |
| 1741 — | a fulmart's head | iiijd | |
| " — | a ffoomard's head | iiijd | |
| 1744 — | 3 marts heads | is" |
These entries are very numerous in our books with every variety of spelling, though the prices remain very much the same. I have found no entries of the kind after 1744, but that may be owing to the accounts being not entered fully in every case after that period; but I cannot agree with J. B. in his assertion that these animals are now considered innocuous; witness the vulgar error with regard to the hedgehog's sucking the teats of cows, an error which no process of reasoning can induce the farmers about here to renounce; moreover, I know for a fact that not more than a dozen years ago the farmers near Wakefield used to give a halfpenny per head for every unlucky sparrow (fledged or unfledged) that was brought to them by any bird-nesting youngster.
J. EASTWOOD.
Ecclesfield, Sheffield.
THE CLAIMS OF LITERATURE.
(Vol. iv., p. 337.)
There is the more pressing need, in our day, of an Order of Victoria, or of Civil Merit—such as you justly and feelingly contend for and describe in the "NOTES AND QUERIES"—from the great and increasing numbers of our literary and scientific men, who are acutely sensible of the undeserved stigma and ban under which they lie, by being often excluded from the intellectual society so congenial to them, owing to their not possessing some recognised badge of honour and passport in life, equivalent to the degrees or distinctions so justly conferred upon those who have studied at our Universities, or are awarded to men who have won eminence in the Naval, Military, or Civil Service of the Crown. An honourable title, proceeding from the Sovereign herself, and bestowed alike on both sexes (for who would think—certainly not our beloved Queen—of wounding the delicate female mind by excluding a Somerville, a Hannah More, a Joanna Baillie, or a Felicia Hemans—the three latter not needing now our poor applause—from the cheering honours due to their genius, their talents, and their virtues?) would be a fitting tribute from a British, a Christian Monarch to that intellectual superiority and moral worth which are the immortal distinctions of our race. At present many individuals who have raised themselves by their native force of mind and acquirements to a position of honour and respectability as literary and scientific men, are yet looked upon and treated as pariahs by those who are the bestowers and guardians of national distinctions. The just pride and self-respect of such men will forbid their courting, by any unworthy advances, an introduction to society, from which, by their position, they stand excluded; and it would be a truly royal exercise of her sovereign rights, for Queen Victoria to extend, beyond the present line of demarcation, the barriers that now prevent those from meeting together, who, if they were better acquainted, would learn to value and esteem each other: while society at large would be an immense gainer in all its relations—scientific, literary, and artistic—by the honours and distinctions thus conferred upon a most worthy, but most contemned and neglected portion of the educated community.
A CONTRIBUTOR TO "NOTES AND QUERIES."