Mr. Editor,--May I ask if any of your contibutors could inform me in an early number, when and on what occasion the Thistle was adopted as the emblem of the Scottish nation? I have looked into many historians, but as yet found nothing definite enough. R. L. Paisley, Oct. 29. 1849. * * * * * CAPTURE OF THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH. Mr. Editor,--Having noticed the letter of Mr. John Bruce, in your Miscellany, I beg leave to inform him that the ash tree under which Monmouth was taken is still standing on the Woodland estate, now the property of the Earl of Shaftesbury. I shall be happy at some future day, if it suits your purpose, to collect and send you such particulars as may be gained on the spot respecting it, and the incidents of the capture. We have still in the Town Hall here the chain in which it is said Jefferies sat at the Bloody Assize. A. D. M. Dorcester, 3d Nov. 1849. [We shall gladly receive the particulars which our Correspondent proposed to collect and forward.] * * * * * SERPENTS' EGGS AND STRAW NECKLACES. [Mr. Thoms' Query in this case should have been limited to the _straw necklaces_, as Mr. Nichols has already explained the _serpents' eggs_; but our Correspondent's letter is so satisfactory on both points that we insert it entire.] The passage from Erasmus, "brachium habet ova serpentum," is plainly to be rendered "and with a string of serpents' eggs on your arm." The meaning is equally apparent on recalling the manner in which snakes' eggs are found, viz., hanging together in a row. Erasmus intends Menedemus to utter a joke at the _rosary of beads_ hanging over the pilgrim's arm, which he professes to mistake for serpents' eggs. I am not aware what particular propriety the "collar or chaplet" (for it may mean either) of _straw_ may have, as worn by a pilgrim from Compostella; or whether there may not lurk under this description, as beneath {25} the other, a jocular sense. The readiest way of determining this point would be to consult some of the accounts of Compostella and of its relics, which are to be found in a class of books formerly abundant in the north-western towns of Spain. V. * * * * * MADOC--HIS EXPEDITION TO AMERICA. "A Student" may consult the _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen_, Mr. Geogehan's _Ireland_, O'Flaherty's _Ogygia_, Magnusen and Rafn _On the Historical Monuments of Greenland and America_, and some of the _Sagas_. SCOTUS. Brechin, Nov. 5. 1849. * * * * * NOTES ON COFFEE. The earliest account we have of coffee is said to be taken from an Arabian MS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi in Paris.