To end with a brace of queries.  Are not delicioe, delicatus, more probably from deligere than from delicere?  And whence comes the word dainty?  I cannot believe in the derivation from dens, “a tooth.”

B.H.  KENNEDY.

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AEROSTATION.

Your correspondent C.B.M. (Vol. ii., p 199.) will find a long article on Aerostation in Rees’ Cyclopaedia; but his inquiry reminds me of a conversation I had with the late Sir Anthony Carlisle, about a year before his death.  He wished to consult me on the subject of flying by mechanical means, and that I should assist him in some of his arrangements.  He had devoted many years of his life to the consideration of this subject, and made numerous experiments at great cost, which induced him to believe in the possibility of enabling man to fly by means of artificial wings.  However visionary this idea might be, he had collected innumerable and extremely interesting data, having examined the anatomical structure of almost every winged thing in the creation, and compared the weight of the body with the area of the wings when expanded in the act of volitation as well as the natural habits of birds, insects, bats, and fishes, with reference to their powers of flying and duration of flight.

These notes would form a valuable addition to natural history, whatever might be thought of the purpose for which they were collected, during a period of thirty years; and it is much to be regretted they were never published.  His own opinion was, that the publication, during his life would injure his practice as a physician.  It would be impossible without the aid of diagrams, and I do not remember sufficient, to explain his mechanical contrivances; but the general principle was, to suspend the man under a kind of flat parachute of extremely thin feather-edge boards, with a power of adjusting the angle at which it was placed, and allowing the man the full use of his arms and legs to work any machinery placed beneath; the area of the parachute being proportioned, as in birds to the weight of the man, who was to start from the top of a high tower, or some elevated position, flying against the wind.

HENRY WILKINSON.

Brompton.

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REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Long Lonkin (Vol. ii., p. 168.).—­If SELEUCUS will refer to Mr. Chamber’s Collection of Scottish Ballads, he will find there the whole story under the name of Lammilsin, of which Lonkin appears to me to be a corruption.  In the 6th verse it is rendered: 

  “He said to his ladye fair,
  Before he gaed abuird,
  Beware, beware o, Lammilsin! 
  For he lyeth in the wudde.”

Then the story goes on to state that Lammilsin crept in at a little shot window, and after some conversation with the “fause nourrice” they decide to