customary manner with sweet cakes and burnt wine. SEPT. 22.] BEDFORDSHIRE. On this day, at Biddenham, shortly before noon, a little procession of villagers convey a white rabbit decorated with scarlet ribbons through the village, singing a hymn in honour of St. Agatha. This ceremony is said to date from the year of the first Crusade. All the unmarried young women who meet the procession extend the first two fingers of the left hand, pointing towards the rabbit, and say-- “Gustin, Gustin, lacks a bier! Maidens, maidens, bury him here.” _The Penny Post_, November 1870. SEPT. 24.] SCALDING THURSDAY. In Laud’s diary occurs the following: “[1635] Sept. 24th, Scalding Thursday.” This was probably a homely term for the day of preparation for that high-day Michaelmas, when the victim goose was scalded, plucked, and hung--a week’s hanging is the rule for a goose.--_N. & Q. 3rd S._, vol. iv. p. 441. SEPT. 28.] MICHAELMAS EVE. SURREY. A curious custom once existed at Kingston, viz., that of the congregation cracking nuts during the performance of divine service on the Sunday next before the eve of St. Michael’s Day: hence the phrase, “Crack-Nut Sunday.” This custom is considered by some to have had originally some connection with the choosing of the bailiff and other members of the corporate body on St. Michael’s Day, and of the usual civic feast attending that proceeding. It would seem, however, from the following passage in Goldsmith’s _Vicar of Wakefield_ (chap. iv.), that the custom was not confined to Kingston; for the good vicar, speaking of his parishioners, says:--“They kept up the Christmas carol, sent true-love-knots on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on Shrovetide, showed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michaelmas eve.”--Brayley, _Topographical History of Surrey_, 1841, vol. iii. p 41. IRELAND. The last Sunday of summer has been, heretofore, a day of great importance with the Irish, as upon it they first tried the new potato, and formed an opinion as to the prospects of the future harvest. The day was always called, in the west in particular, “Garlic Sunday,” perhaps a corruption of Garland Sunday.--_N. & Q. 1st. S._ vol. ix. p. 34. SEPT. 29.] MICHAELMAS DAY. At this season village maidens, in the west of England, go up and down the hedges gathering crab apples, which they carry home, putting them into a loft, and forming with them the initials of their supposed suitors’ names. The initials which are found, on examination, to be most perfect on _Old_ Michaelmas Day are considered to represent the strongest attachments and the best for choice of husbands.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 356.