P. S.--By-the-bye, talking of cats, there is a story current, that a certain archbishop, who sits neither at Canterbury nor York, having once, in unbending mood, demanded of one of his clergy if he could decline "cat," corrected the reverend catechumen, when, having arrived at the vocative case, he gave it, "Vocative, O cat!" and declared such declension to be wrong, and that the vocative of "cat" was "_puss_." Of course, it will be henceforth considered so in the diocese presided over by the prelate in question, as the gender of "carrosse" was changed throughout _la belle France_, by a blunder of the _grand monarque_. But surely the archbishop was as palpably wrong as the king was. At least, if he was not, we have only the alternative of considering Shakspeare to have blundered. For, have we not Stefano's address to poor Caliban: "Open your mouth; here is that which will give language to you, _cat_." And again, does not Lysander, somewhat ungallantly, thus apostrophise Hermia: "Hang off, thou _cat_, thou burr!" Moreover, will not the pages of our nursery literature furnish on the other hand abundance of {575} instances _passim_ of _puss_ used in every one of the oblique cases, as well as in the nominative? _Tailless Cats_ (Vol. ix., pp. 10. 111.).--It may be interesting to your correspondent SHIRLEY HIBBERD to know, that the Burmese breed of cats is, like that of the Isle of Man, tailless; or, if not exactly without tails, the tails they have are so short as to be called so merely by the extremest courtesy. This is the only respect, however, in which they differ from other cats. S. B. Lucknow. _Francklyn Household Book_ (Vol. ix., p. 422.).-- _Bay-salt to stop the barrels._--Before heading down a cask of salted meat, the vacant spaces are filled up with salt. _Giggs and scourge-sticks._--Whip-tops, and whips for spinning them. _Jumballs._--A kind of gingerbread. JOHN P. STILWELL. Dorking. _"Violet-crowned" Athens_ (Vol. ix., p. 496.).--I have always understood that the adoption of the _violet_ as the heraldic flower of old Athens involved, as heraldry so often does, a pun. As you well know, the Greek for violet is [Greek: Ion], and thence its adoption as the symbolical flower of the chief city in Europe of the _Ion_ian race. CANTAB. _Smith of Nevis and St. Kitt's_ (Vol. ix., p. 222.).--I find by some curious letters from an old lady, by birth a Miss Williams of Antigua, and widow of the son of the Lieut.-Governor of Nevis, now in the possession of a friend of mine connected with the West Indies, that the arms of that family were--Gules, on a chevron between three bezants or, three cross crosslets sable. And the crest, from a ducal coronet or, an Indian goat's head argent. This may facilitate the search of your correspondent for the affiliation of that family to the United Kingdom. B.