Cherbourg, Dep. p. 331.; Suhm, in a note appended, finds the root in his tongue, _skiair_, _skeer_; Icelandic _Sker_, a sea-rock, the Orkney _Skerry_, an islet covered at high water. Houlmes, near Rouen; the Orkney _Holm_, a small island generally uninhabited. Yvetot; Toft common in Orkney. Bye, a dwelling, is the Orkney Bu or Boo, a pure Icelandic word. Other instances could be given; and there is nothing remarkable in this when it is considered that the invaders of Orkney and Normandy were the same people at the same period, and the better preservation of the Norse tongue in Orkney is readily to be accounted for. In Normandy the language of the invaders was lost in the French in a very short space of time, while the Norse continued the language of Orkney and Zetland during their subjection to the Norwegian earls for a period of 600 years; and only last year, 1850, it was that an old man in Unst in Zetland, who could speak Norse, died at the age of eighty-seven years; and except there be in Foula (Fougla, the fowls' island, called Thule in the Latin charters of its proprietors) a person living who can speak it, that old tongue is extinct in Britain. W.H.F. Queries. Minor Queries. _357. Meaning of Ploydes._--Perhaps the gentleman who has directed his attention to the folk lore of Lancashire (Vol. iii., p. 55.) can tell the meaning of the word _ploydes_ in the following rhythmical proverb. The three parishes of Prescot, Huyton, and Childwall adjoin each other, and lie to the east of Liverpool:-- Prescot, Huyton, and merry Childow, Three parish churches, all in a row; Prescot for mugs, Huyton for _ploydes_, And Childow for ringing and singing besides." ST. JOHNS. _358. Green-eyed Monster._--Whence the origin of the "Green-eyed Monster"? The Italians considered a green iris beautiful, thus Dante makes Beatrice have "emerald eyes;" again, the Spaniards are loud in their praise. Whence, then, the epithet in its present sense? [?] _359. Perpetual Lamp._--The ancient Romans are said to have preserved lights in their sepulchres many ages by the oiliness of gold, resolved by art into a liquid substance. And it is reported that, at the dissolution of monasteries, in the time of Henry VIII., there was a lamp found that had then burnt in a tomb from about 300 years after Christ, nearly 1200 years. Two of these subterranean lamps are to be seen in the Museum of Rarities at Leyden in Holland. One of these lamps, in the papacy of Paul III., was found in the tomb of Tullia, Cicero's daughter, which had been shut up 1550 years. From 2nd edit. of N. Bailey, φιλόλογος, 1731. B.B.