123. _Pirog._--A custom, I believe, still exists in Russia for the mistress of a family to distribute on certain occasions bread or cake to her guests. Some particulars of this custom appeared either in the _Globe_ or the _Standard_ newspaper in 1837 or 1838, during the months of October, November, or December. Having lost the reference to the precise date, and only recollecting that the custom is known by the name of _Pirog_, I shall feel much obliged to any correspondent of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" if he can supply me with further information on the subject. R. M. W. 124. _Lists of Plants with their Provincial Names._--In a biography that appeared of Dr. P. Brown in the _Anthologia Hibernica_ for Jan. 7, 1793, we are informed that he prepared for the press a "Fasciculus Plantarum Hibernicarum," enumerating chiefly those growing in the counties of Mayo and Galway, written in Latin, with the English and Irish names of each plant. See also _Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science_, i.--xxx. Where is this MS.? Can any of your readers refer me to similar lists of plants indigenous to either England or Ireland, in which the provincial names are preserved, with any notes on their use in medicine, or their connexion with the superstitions of the district to which the list refers? Any information on this subject, however slight, will particularly oblige S. P. H. T. P.S. I should not be much surprised if the MS. of Dr. P. Brown existed in some of the collectanea in the Library of Trin. Coll. Dub. 125. _Print cleaning._--How should prints be cleaned, so as not to injure the paper? A. G. 126. _Italian Writer on Political Economy--Carli the Economist._--What was the first work by an Italian writer on any element of political economy? and in what year did Carli, the celebrated economist, die? ALPHA. 127. _Nightingale and Thorn._--Where is the earliest notice of the fable of the nightingale and the thorn? that she sings because she has a thorn in her breast? For obvious reasons, the fiction cannot be classical. It is noticed by Byron: "The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn, That fable places in her breast of wail, Is lighter far of heart and voice than those Whose headlong passions form their proper woes." But an earlier mention is found in Browne's poem on the death of Mr. Thomas Manwood:-- "Not for thee these briny tears are spent, But as the nightingale against the breere, 'Tis for myself I moan and do lament, Not that thou left'st the world, but left'st me here." He seems to interpret the fable to the same effect as Homer makes Achilles' women lament Patroclus--Πατρόκλου πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ' αὐτῶν κήδε' ἑκάστη. It has been suggested that it rather implies that the spirit of music, like that of poetry and prophecy, visits chiefly the afflicted,--a comfortable doctrine to prosaic and unmusical people. A. W. H.