C.B.

Earwig (Vol. i., p. 383.).—­This insect is very destructive to the petals of some kinds of delicate flowers.  May it not have acquired the title of “couchbell” from its habit of couching or concealing itself for rest at night and security from small birds, of which it is a favourite food, in the pendent blossoms of bell-shaped flowers?  This habit is often fatal to it in the gardens of cottagers, who entrap it by means of a lobster’s claw suspended on an upright stick.

S.S.S.

Earwig (Vol. i., p. 383.).—­In the north of England the earwig is called twitchbell.  I know not whether your correspondent is in error as to its being called in Scotland the “coach-bell.”  I cannot afford any explanation to either of these names.

G. BOUCHIER RICHARDSON.

Sir R. Haigh’s Letter-book (Vol. i, p. 463.).—­This is incorrect; no such person is known.  The baronet intended is Sir Roger Bradshaigh, of Haigh; a very well-known person, whose funeral sermon was preached by Wroe, the warden of Manchester Collegiate Church, locally remembered as “silver-mouthed Wroe.”

This name is correctly given in Puttick and Simpson’s Catalogue of a Miscellaneous Sale on April 15, and it is to be hoped that Sir Roger’s collection of letters, ranging from 1662 to 1676, may have fallen into the hands of the noble earl who represents him, the present proprietor of Haigh.

CHETHAMENSIS.

Marescautia (Vol. i., p. 94.).—­Your correspondent requests some information as to the meaning of the word “marescautia.” Mareschaucie, in old French, means a stable.  Pasquier (Recherches de la France, l. viii. ch. 2.) says,—­

    “Pausanias disoit que Mark apud Celtas signifioit un cheual
    ... je vous diray qu’en ancien langage allemant Mark se
    prenoit pour un cheual.”

In ch. 54. he refers to another etymolygy of “marechal,” from “maire,” or “maistre,” and “cheval,” “comme si on les eust voulu dire maistre de la cheualerie.”  “Marechal” still signifies “a farrier.” Marechaussee was the term applied down to the Revolution to the jurisdiction of Nosseigneurs les Marechaux de France, whose orders were enforced by a company of horse that patrolled the highways, la chaussee, generally raised above the level of the surrounding country.  Froissart applies the term to the Marshalsea prison in London.  In D.S.’s first entry there may, perhaps, be some allusion to another meaning of the word, namely, that of “march, limit, boundary.”

What the nature of the tenure per serjentiam marescautiae may be I am not prepared to say.  May it not have had some reference to the support of the royal stud?

J.B.D.