amongst them.  I broke seventeen ribs on one side, and twenty-one and a half on the other:  but my arrow passed clean through without ever touching it, and the worst was I lost my arrow; however, I found it again in the hollow of a tree.  I felt it:  it felt clammy.  I smelt it; it smelt honey.  ‘Oh, ho!’ said I, ’here’s a bee’s nest,’ when out sprung a covey of partridges.  I shot at them; some say I killed eighteen, but I am sure I killed thirty-six, besides a dead salmon which was flying over the bridge, of which I made the best apple pie I ever tasted.”

Such is the story:  I can answer for its general accuracy.  I am quite at sea as to the meaning and orthography of “hipper switches,”—­having heard, not seen, the story.

S.G.

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

* * * * *

THE COLLAR OF SS.

(Vol. ii., pp. 89. 194. 248.)

The Collar of SS. “is to this day a mystery to the most learned and indefatigable antiquaries,” according to Mr. Planche, in his valuable little work on The History of British Costume:  what has appeared in “NOTES AND QUERIES” certainly has not cleared away the obscurity.  ARMIGER tells us (Vol. ii., p. 195.):  “As to the derivation of the name of the collar from Soverayne; from St. Simplicius; from the martyrs of Soissons (viz.  St. Crespin and St. Crespinian, upon whose anniversary the battle of Agincourt was fought); from the Countess of Salisbury; from the word Souvenez; and, lastly, from Seneschallus or Steward, (which latter is MR. NICHOLS’ notion)—­they may be regarded as mere monkish (?) or heraldic gossip.”  If the monastic writers had spoken anything on the matter, a doubt never would have existed:  but none of them has even hinted at it.  Never having seen the articles in the Gentleman’s Magazine, I do not know MR. NICHOLS’ reasons for supposing “Seneschallus or Steward” could have furnished an origin of the SS.; but I am at loss to think of any grounds upon which such a guess could rest.  From the searches I have made upon this question, it seems to me that these SS. are taken as a short way of expressing the “SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS” of the Salisbury liturgy and ritual.  I hope soon to be able to lay before the public the documents out of which I draw this opinion, in a note to the third and forthcoming volume of The Church of our Fathers.

D. ROCK.

Collar of SS.—­To your list of persons now privileged to wear these collars, I beg to add her Majesty’s serjeant trumpeter, Thomas Lister Parker, Esq., to whom a silver collar of SS. has been granted.  It is always worn by him or his deputy on state occasions.

THOMAS LEWIS,

Acting Serjeant Trumpeter.
34.  Mount Street.

* * * * *

JOACHIN, THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR. 
(Vol. ii., p. 229.)

Your correspondent AMICUS will I fear find very little information about this mysterious person in the writers of French history of the time. {281} He is thus mentioned in Cavendish’s Life of Wolsey (ed. 1825, vol. i. p. 73.):—­