In regard to my Query IX. as to the local habitation of the family of _Dronte_, who bore a Dodo on their shield, it has been suggested to me by the Rev. Richard Hooper (who first drew my attention to this armorial bearing), that the family was probably foreign to Britain. It appears that there was a family named _Dodo_, in Friesland, a member of which (Augustin Dodo, deceased in 1501) was the first editor of St. Augustine's works. Mr. Hooper suggests that possibly this family may have subsequently adopted the Dodo as their arms, and that Randle Holme may, by a natural mistake, have changed the name of the family, in his _Academy of Armory_, from _Dodo_ to the synonymous word _Dronte_. Can none of your genealogical readers clear up this point? H.E. Strickland. * * * * * DERIVATION OF "STERLING" AND "PENNY". Your correspondent suggests (No. 24. p. 384.) an ingenious derivation for the word _Sterling_; but one which perhaps he has been too ready to adopt, inasmuch as it helped his other derivation of _peny_, from _pecunia_ or _pecus_. I quote the following from _A short Treatise touching Sheriff's Accompts_, by Sir Matthew Hale: London, 1683: "Concerning the second, _viz._ the matter or species whereof the current coin of this kingdom hath been made, it is gold or silver, but not altogether pure, but with an allay of copper, at least from the time of King H. I. and H. II., though possibly in ancienter times the species whereof the coin was made might be pure gold or silver; and this allay was that which gave the denomination of Sterling to that coin, _viz._ Sterling Gold, or Sterling Silver. Wherein there will be inquirable, "1. Whence that denomination came? "2. How ancient that denomination was? "3. What was the allay that gave silver that denomination? "For the former of these there are various conjectures, and nothing of certainty.