258
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. SKPT. 23. me.
Bellini, whose ' II lavoriero da pesca nella
laguna di Comacchio ' is stated to be the
principal monograph on the industry. Space
would hardly allow of quotation of the details
given b\ J Beltramelli; and as regards Tasso,
his lyric synthesis of the Comacchio method
amounts (in a stanza of eight lines) to this :
the fish flies the wild, rough wave, and seeks
a retreat in still waters, where our sea
becomes a marsh in Comacchio's bosom ;
but, as it happens, it shuts itself in a swampy
prison (palustre prigion), nor can escape
because that serraglio is by wondrous art
ever to entrance, wide to exit, barred. A copy of Beltramelli can be consulted in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
A. V. DE P.
L. L. K. will find an account of these fisheries chiefly of eels in Spallanzani's works. An application to the amiable Librarian of the Biblioteca Comunale at Ferrara will put him on the track of a pretty large literature on this subject.
NORMAN DOUGLAS.
THE LITTLE FINGER CALLED " PINK " (12 S. ii. 209). The following extract from Barrere and Leland's ' Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant ' seems to answer the query propounded by COL. WHERRY:
" Pinky (American), an old New York term for the little finger, from the provincial English pinky, very small. A common term in New York, especially among small children, who, when making a bargain with each other, are accustomed to con- firm it by interlocking the little finger of each other's right hand and repeating the following :
Pinky, pinky bow bell,
Whoaver tells a lie
Will sink down to the bad place
And never rise up again."
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
I am glad COL. WHERRY has been moved to tell us this, because as far as I can see and I see less and less as weeks go on the ' E.D.D.' is unconscious of the existence of such a term for the fifth of our five fingers. I do not remember having heard it in use. I presume that it means small. Our fore- fathers marked their sense of this smallness of the finger in question by calling it Littleman ; and Halliwell, in ' Nursery Rhymes of England ' and in ' Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales ' together, gives examples of jingles in which " Peesy-weesy," " Mama's little man," " Little Dick," and " Pinky-winky " find place. In Denmark, the compiler shows, the little finger is Lille Peer Spilleman=little Peter the fiddler; and in Sweden Lille Gullvive, the meaning of
which he does not tell. I have sought for
it in vain in Hossfeld's ' Swedish Dictionary.'
I wonder if I err in fancying that " pink "
was in the first instance instinctively applied
to things small, quick, and acute ; and that
" pink," as an adjective, comes from the
original hue of little flowers so designated.
ST. SWITHIN.
The diminutive form "pinkie" is widely used in Scotland as a name for the little finger. In the ' Scottish Dictionary ' Jamie- son notes its prevalence in the Lothians, Ayrshire, and Lanarkshire; and Fifeshire may be added to his list. As to origin, the lexicographer's note is : " Belg. pink, id. pinck, digitus minimus, Kilian." The term, he further says, is used for the smallest candle that is made, for the weakest kind of beer brewed for the table, and for a person who is blindfolded.
Another name for the little finger in Scotland is " curnie," which is perhaps used chiefly in the nursery and at school.
THOMAS BAYNE.
In the Tweedside border it is quite common, to call the little finger the " pinkie." Some years ago, discussing the similarity between some of the words used in the Scottish border and others bearing the same meaning in Holland, I cited the word " pinkie " as an instance, and my friend from Haarlem told me the word had the same pronunciation and meaning in his country. Probably the long and regular intercourse between Rotterdam and Leith, and between other ports on the North Sea coast, led to the adoption of Dutch and German words in the seaports on the south-east of Scotland, which gradually found their way inland to the border towns. The schoolchildren invariably speak of their little finger as their " pinkie."
ANDREW HOPE. Exeter.
" Pinky " is a dialect word used both substantively and adjectively in the northern counties of Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Lancashire, and as far south as Oxford ; but it appears to be of Lowland Scotch origin ; see Wright's ' Eng- lish Dialect Dictionary,' s.v., where the- following examples occur : " He had a gowd ring on his pinkie " (Linlithgow) ; " Never again should his pinkie finger go through that warm hole " (Forfar) ; while the phrase " to turn up the pinkie " is lynonymous with tipping the little finger.
I judge its derivation to be the same as that of the Scotch place-name Pinkie, where-
