In the 351st number of the _Monthly Magazine_, dated March 1st, 1821, there is a letter to the editor from W. Partridge, dated Boxbridge, Gloucester, giving several instances of his having successfully used the divining-rod for the purpose of discovering water. He says the gift is not possessed by more than one in two thousand, and attributes the power to electricity. Those persons in whose hands it will work must possess a redundancy of that fluid. He also states that metals are discovered by the same means. K. B. _Slow-worm Superstition_ (Vol. vii., p. 33.).--The belief that the slow-worm cannot die until sunset prevails in Dorsetshire. In the New Forest the same superstition exists with regard to the brown adder. Walking in the heathy country between Beaulieu and Christ Church I saw a very large snake of this kind, recently beaten to death by the peasant boys, and on remarking that the lower jaw continued to move convulsively, I was told it would do so "till the moon was up." An aged woman, now deceased, who had when young been severely bitten by a snake, told me she always felt a severe pain and swelling near where the wound had been, on the anniversary of the occurrence. Is this common? and can it be accounted for? W. E. Pimperne, Dorset. _Ravailliac_ (Vol. viii., p. 219.).--The destruction of the pyramid erected at Paris upon the murder of Henry IV., is mentioned by Thuanus, _Hist._, lib. 134. cap. 9. In your correspondent's Query, _Thesaur._ is, I presume, misprinted for Thuan. B. J. _Lines on the Institution of the Garter_ (Vol. viii., p. 182.).--A. B. R. says, "as also from the proverbial expression used in Scotland, and to be found in Scott's _Works_, of 'casting a leggin girth,' as synonymous with a female 'faux pas.'" I may mention to your correspondent (if he is not already aware) that the expression is taken from Allan Ramsay's continuation of _Christ's Kirk on the Green_ (edit. Leith, 1814, 1 vol. p. 101.): "Or bairns can read, they first maun spell, I learn'd this frae my mammy; And _coost a legen girth_ mysell, Lang or I married Tammie." and is explained by the author in a note, "Like a tub that loses one of its bottom hoops." In the west of Scotland the phrase is now restricted to a young woman who has had an illegitimate child, or what is more commonly termed "a misfortune," and it is probable never had another meaning. _Legen_ or _leggen_ is not understood to have any affinity in its etymology to the word _leg_, but is _laggen_, that part of the staves which projects from the bottom of the barrel, or of the child's _luggie_, out of which he sups his oatmeal _parritch_; and the _girth_, _gird_, or hoop, that by which the vessel at this particular place is firmest bound together. Burns makes a fine and emphatic use of the word _laggen_ in the "Birthday Address," in speaking of the "Royal lasses dainty" (_Cunninghame_, edit. 1826, vol. ii. p. 329.):