[Footnote 9: With this solecism in the printed _Flores Historiarum_ I find that a MS. in the Chetham Library agrees, the abbreviative mark used in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. for the terminations _us_ and _er_ having been affixed to this participle.] [Footnote 10: To the passages I have elsewhere referred to on _The Concert of Nature_, from Ausonius, Epistle 25., and Spenser's _Faerie Queen_, book ii. canto xii. st. 71., "divine respondence meet" is made by the last lines in Tennyson's _Dying Swan_.] _Swearing by Swans_ (Vol. ii., p. 392.).--The quotation given by your correspondent E.T.M. (Vol. ii., p. 451.), only increases my desire to receive a reply to my query on this subject, since he has adduced a parallel custom. What are the earliest notices of the usage of swearing by swans and pheasants? Was the pheasant ever considered a _royal_ bird? R.V. _The Frozen Horn_ (Vol. iii., p. 25.).--I am quite angry with J.M.G. for supposing my old friend Sir John Maundevile guilty of such a _flam_ as that which he quotes from memory as the worthy knight's own statement. There is no such story in the _Voiage and Travaile_: nay more, there is not in the whole of that "ryght merveillous" book, a single passage given on the authority of Sir John as eyewitness that is not perfectly credible. When he quotes Pliny for monsters, the Chronicles for legends, and the romances of his time for narratives of an extraordinary character, he does so in evident good faith as a compiler. His most improbable statements, too, are always qualified with some such phrase as "men seyn, but I have not sene it." In a word, I believe Sir John Maundevile to have been as truthful in intention as any writer of his age. I am afraid that J.M.G.'s knowledge of our old "voiager" is limited to some jest-book of more modern times, which attributes to him sayings and doings of which he is perfectly guiltless. MARK ANTONY LOWER. Lewes. _Cockade and True Blue_ (Vol. iii., pp. 7. 27.) both owe their origin to the wars of the Scottish Covenanters; and the cockade appears to have been first adopted as a distinguishing emblem by the English army at the battle of Sherra-muir, where the Scotch wore the blue ribbon as a scarf, or on their bonnets (which was their favourite colour). The English army then, to distinguish themselves, assumed a black rosette on their hats; which, from its position, the Scotch nick-named a "cock'ade" (with which our use of the word "cockscomb" is connected) and is still retained. An old Scotch song describing, "the Battle of Sherra-muir" (which name it bears) in verse 2., line 1., speaks of the English as-- "The red-coat lads, wi' black cockades;" verse 3., describing the Scotch and their mode of fighting, says,--