ld be the sign
of the plural." Not necessarily so, no more than an "_s_" to "mean"
furnishes a "means" of proving the same thing. But granting that it
were so, what then? The word "news" _is_ undoubtedly plural, and has
been so used from the earliest times; as (in the example I sent for
publication last week, of so early a date as the commencement of Henry
VIII.'s reign) may be seen in "_thies_ new_es_."

But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of
"noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by
which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"

Is not Mr. Hickson aware that _la noise_ is a French noun-singular
signifying a contention or dispute? and that the same word exists in
the Latin _nisus_, a struggle?

If mere plausibility be sufficient ground to justify a derivation,
where is there a more plausible one than that "news," _intelligence,
ought_ to be derived from [Greek: nous], _understanding_ or _common
sense_?

A.E.B.

Leeds, May 5th.

Further evidence (see Vol. i., p. 369.) of the existence and common
use of the word "newes" in its present signification but ancient
orthography anterior to the introduction of newspapers.

In a letter from the Cardinal of York (Bainbridge) to Henry VIII.
(Rymer's _Foedera_, vol. vi. p. 50.),

"After that thies Newes afforesaide ware dyvulgate in the
Citie here."

Dated from Rome, September, 1513.

The _Newes_ was of the victory just gained by Henry over the French,
commonly known as "The Battle of the Spurs."

A.E.B.

* * * * *

THE DODO QUERIES.

I beg to thank Mr. S.W. Singer for the further notices he has given
(Vol. i., p. 485.) in connection with this subject. I was well
acquainted with the passage which he quotes from Osorio, a passage
which some writers have very inconsiderately connected with the
Dodo history. In reply to Mr. Singer's Queries, I need only make the
following extract from the _Dodo and its Kindred_, p. 8.:--

"The statement that Vasco de Gama, in 1497, discovered, sixty
leagues beyond the Cape of Good Hope, a bay called after San
Blaz, near an island full of birds with wings like bats, which
the sailors called _solitaries_ (De Blainville, _Nouv. Ann.
Mus. Hist. Nat._, and _Penny Cyclopaedia_, DODO, p. 47.), is
wholly irrelevant. The birds are evidently penguins, and
their wings were compared to those of bats,