230
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. xn. SEPT. is, 1915.
embassy to Kandy in 1800, and left tKe
island shortly after his return from Kandy.
He must have personally known General
MacDowall, who had been in garrison at
Trincomalee in 1782. It seems unlikely,
therefore, that he should make a mistake as
to the composition of that garrison when
collecting information for his book :
" Soon after the capture of Trincomalie, the English admiral judged it necessary to sail to the roads of Madras for repairs. While these were completing, it was understood that the French admiral Suffrein had formed a design to retake it ; and about 200 men of the Forty- Second Regiment were despatched to re- inforce the garrison. ..."
But the REV. FRANK PENNY says :
" The 42nd Kegiment was not in Madras at this period. . . .The garrison was. . . .strengthened by the arrival from Madras of 200 men of H.M.'s 78th Regiment."
A possible explanation is that of COL. C. J. DURAND, that " the 73rd Regiment was the
2nd Battalion of the Black Watch they
were in the Madras Presidency at the time." But this would necessitate the substitution of " 73rd " for MR. PENNY'S " 78th." So far as my interpretation of the ' Monthly Return of Troops in the Garrisons of Trincomalie, &c.,' is concerned it would not matter, for " 73 " in a faded and blurred eighteenth- century document might pass as easily for "98 " as might "78."
The question seems to require further elucidation. PENRY LEWIS.
THE CUCKOO IN FOLK-LORE (11 S. xii. 182). ' A Bit o' Love ' is not always on hand, and I have applied at two libraries, in vain, to find what it is that Mr. Galsworthy has put into the mouths of West-Country folk which is out of keeping with probability. Would that M. P. had given a quotation ! I have about me a deluge of lore anent the cuckoo, which I have not time to sift or to summarize. I may say that, though I do not believe that the cuckoo is wholly approved of by rustics, it is somewhat of a favourite, being welcome as the harbinger of spring, and honoured as a bird which knows when you will be married, and how long you have to live. Its social habits it is impossible for gentle or simple to applaud, and it was Shakespeare who said " Cuckoo, cuckoo," was unpleasing to the married ear ; and one may suspect that he learnt that, and not out of a book, in Warwickshire. It is too much to say that the cuckoo " is a bird of good omen to country people wherever it is heard." In Perigord they tell you that a
man will be idle all the year after if he should
hear the bird call, for the first time, before
breakfast. To avoid the doom he must at
the first note put road-dust on his head.
That man in all likelihood does not welcome
Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! " very gladly.
ST. SWITHIN.
I think that MR. GALSWORTHY was quite justified in his assumption that a West- Country farmer would be familiar with the association of the cuckoo with marital unfaithfulness. He might even have sung :
When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then on every tree
Mocks married men ; for thus sings he, Cuckoo ;
Cuckoo, cuckoo : O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear !
' Love's Labour 's Lost,' Act V. sc. ii.
It is not at all an unusual thing for the term " a regular cuckoo " to be applied to somebody who is easily gullible.
Brand 's * Popular Antiquities ' ( Chatto & Windus), 1890, p. 417, has:
"Of the word 'Cuckold.' It is not easy to understand how it has come about that this word, which is generally derived from cucuhis (a cuckoo), has been assigned to the injured husband, for it seems more properly to belong to the adulterer, the cuckoo being well known to be the bird that de- posits its eggs in other birds' nests.
" The Romans apparently used cuculus in its proper sense of adulterer, with equal propriety calling the cuckold himelf curruca, or hedge- sparrow, which bird is well-known to adopt the other's spurious offspring.
" The cuckoo, says Johnson in his ' Dictionary, T is said to suck the eggs of other birds, and lay her own to be hatched in their place ; from which practice it was usual to alarm a husband at the approach of an adulterer by calling ' cuckoo/ which by mistake was in time applied to the husband."
WM. H. PEET.
DEDICATION OF LADY CHAPEL (11 S. xii. 160, 205). The parish church of Gateshead, built c. 1100, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary; and in 1330 Alan, the priest of Gateshead, founded a chantry of the Virgin in the north porch of the church. The foundation charters are still preserved in the vestry. M. H. DODDS.
COL. GEORGE BODENS (US. xi. 267, 477 ; xii. 17). The name of Col. George BodenS appears in the Army List till 1785, but disappears in 1786. He reached the rank of colonel on 19 Feb., 1762. Did he die in the vear 1785 ? HORACE BLEACKLEY.
