in the Georgics, ii. 372, and in Seneca, De Irâ, ii. 12, " Cum maximos ferarum greges linea pennis distincta contineat et in insidias agat ab ipso effectu dicta formido."
The fact that Wellington is at no great distance from the staghunting district of Exmoor seems to point in the same direction. On the other hand, Somersetshire is, I am afraid, one of the most superstitious counties in England.
St. John's Training College, Battersea, September 15, 1887.
Sir—I have but just seen your paragraph and the Rev. Evan Daniel's letter on this subject in the Guardian of September 14 and 21. Permit me to say that I was quite aware of the use of cords with feathers for scaring birds, &c., but that such cords did not seem to me to resemble closely the rope which I showed at Manchester. Those used by fowlers, of which drawings may be seen in old books on sport, are long feathered strings stretched horizontally like clothes-line. Those referred to by Virgil in the passage cited by Mr. Daniel (is puniceâ a printer's error?) appear from other passages in the dictionaries to have been of this sort. The rope exhibited by me was evidently not for use in this way. What was new in the discussion was the statement that "sewels" of feathered cord, made to be carried in the hand for turning back deer, are still used in England; of these I hope soon to get some specimens, in order to ascertain how far they are like my rope. It has to be remembered that (as I pointed out at the meeting) the neighbours probably had something to go upon when they talked about the "witch's ladder" and the "new rope with new feathers," and thought that both it and the brooms it was found hidden with had to do with witchcraft. Their notion is strengthened by the fact that in another part of the same county the name of "witch's ladder" is given to a little straw ladder with feathers along it, which is made for purposes of sorcery, while it appears also that in Florence "a long twisted cord .... stuck full of feathers put in crosswise "may be hidden in a child's bed to bewitch it. At any rate, these objects cannot be instruments for scaring deer.
September 23, 1887.
