In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, on New Year's Eve, boys still dressed up a grotesque figure, which they called the "vieux bout de l'an," and buried or burnt with mock ceremonies in some retired spot. But that practice also fell into abeyance until, some time in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an English family of small farmers started a Guy Fawkes celebration in the island.

To the country people the name "Guy Fawkes" meant nothing, while they had a confused recollection of the earlier "bout de l'an" celebrations; so to them the "Guy" was invariably known as "bout de l'an" or "budloe" (as they spelt it), though without any real idea of what the name conveyed. Therefore, I think that it was the veritable "bout de l'an" of New Year's Eve which is referred to in the term "bout de l'an," and that any November fires-if any there were-had been abolished far too long to be remembered.

I send an illustration (Pl. II.) of our Guy Fawkes procession as it appeared in 1903, and of the accompanying appeal. The grotesque garments of the riders as the horses wended their way by torchlight were exceedingly picturesque. But the squibs and crackers thrown about by the rank and file of the procession were considered a menace to traffic, and I am sorry to say the Royal Court have recently abolished the whole ceremony.

EDITH H. CAREY (Editor "Guernsey Folklore").

Copy of Handbill:

KIND FRIENDS

We now take the liberty of calling your attention to our annual GUY FAWKES DEMONSTRATION, which takes place this evening. We need scarcely repeat the particulars of the origin of Gun Powder Plot, or the part played by the traitor Guy Fawkes, who was captured whilst attempting to blow up the House of Parliament, together with the King, Lords, and Members. Although this event took place some years ago, we consider it a mark of loyalty as well as amusement to thus exhibit our hatred of traitors. Trusting, kind friends, to your liberality to assist us in this demonstration,-We remain, yours faithfully, THE ST. MARTIN'S TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION.

GOD SAVE THE KING.

FOLKLORE OF ARISTOTLE.

(Vol. xviii., pp. 212-215.)

tu reply to queries in Folk-Lore for June, 1907, I have received the tollowing information, much of which will be of great use

to me:

(1) Mr. G. C. Zervos, writing from Calymnos on Oct. 23rd, 1907, says: "The sponge is considered to be an animal, because the sponge fishermen say that ἐψόφησαν τὰ σφουγγάρια = the sponges have become dead. Now, this word op is used in

wedern Greek to denote the death of animals only." Dr. W. H. D. Rouse also says: "In modern Greece the sponge is spoken of un terms which would suit an animal, as ǹ μáva is the lower sponge."

(2) According to The Cyclades, or Life among the Insular Greeks, by Jas. Theodore Bent, 1885, p. 439: "It is deemed very unlucky to sneeze at the cheese Sunday banquet [in Lent]; anyone who does must tear his coat to avert disaster. Greeks, in common with other nationalities, regard sneezing with superstition; if you are a layman they wish you good health, if you are a priest they say 'safety'; why this distinction I could not find out."

Dr. W. H. D. Rouse says: "Sneezing is an omen," and Mr. G. C. Zervos says: "When a person sneezes it is said that people are speaking of him.”

(3) Mr. G. C. Zervos says that the same superstition still exists that "Men also, very rarely, have milk produced in their breasts."

Mr. W. F. Kirby informs me that there are, among recorded instances of lactation in males, (1) that of Thorgils, the Icelander, in Baring-Gould's book on Iceland, chap. 22; (2) that of a South American settler, in Humboldt and Bonpland's Personal Narrative, book iii. chap. 6; (3) that of a he-goat, in Hanover, recorded in the chapter just quoted; and (4) that recorded by Anna Blackwell in her "Testimony of the Ages," published some years ago in a periodical called Human Nature.

Notes and Queries, Dec. 7th, 1889, p. 442, contains a reference to the case of a young Chipewyan who suckled his own child after the death of its mother.

(4) Mr. W. F. Kirby refers me to Barrow's Account of Travels into the interior of Southern Africa in the years 1797 and 1798, London, 1801, vol. i., pp. 312-319; on p. 313 is a figure of the head of a one-horned Antelope, copied from a Bosjeman's drawing on a cavern wall, and Mr. Kirby says: "But the figure represents the horn as over the eye, which looks as if it was either taken in profile or from an animal in which the left horn was broken off or undeveloped."

(5) I have not received any information.

(6) I should be glad to receive further detailed information.

(7) Notes and Queries for May 7, 1887, p. 370, shows that about the year 1850, whilst the new road and bridge across the Thames from Old Windsor to Datchet was in course of construction, the navvies working on the line of road unearthed one morning, a foot or two below the surface, human skeletons, etc. The writer of the note goes on to say, "I was present at the unearthing, and was more interested in a number of living and moving 'anatomies' found with the bones, all not thicker than a hair, apparently without head or tail, and each one mixed up so that each convolution could be easily traced. . . . The men who first came across them made no bones about setting them down at once as animated hairs, the theory, as far as I could understand it, being that the river often overflowing the spot, or the ground being otherwise kept moist by it, hairs ultimately developed into 'them there kind o' eels, a wery common thing about the water in these parts, guv'ner.'"

(8), (9) and (10). I should be glad to receive further detailed information.

Dudley House,

Upper Highway, King's Langley.

T. EAST LONES.

[The points on which Mr. Lones still desires information are horned snakes, the use of astragali in divination, the fish called Echeneis, and the belief that the eyes of snakes and swallows will grow again if they are blinded. ED.]