hyard; and, wishing "for the honour of the place," to improve the
note-books of visitors, set about manufacturing an extraordinary instance
of longevity. A gravestone was chosen in an out-of-the-way place, in which
there happened to be a space before the age (72). A figure 1 was cut in
this space, and the age at death then stood 172. The sexton was either
deceived, or assented to the deception; as the late vicar, the Rev. J.
Clayton, learned that it had become a practice with him (the sexton) to
show strangers this gravestone, so falsified, as a proof of the
extraordinary age to which people lived in the parish. The vicar had the
fraudulent figure erased at once, and lectured the sexton for his
dishonesty.

These facts were related to me a few weeks since by a son of the late
vicar. And as many strangers visiting the tomb of Shakspeare "made a note"
of this falsified age, "N. & Q." may now correct the forgery.

ROBERT RAWLINSON.

_Barnacles in the River Thames._--In Porta's _Natural Magic_, Eng. trans.,
Lond. 1658, occurs the following curious passage:

"Late writers report that not only in Scotland, but also in the river
of Thames by London, there is a kind of shell-fish in a two-leaved
shell, that hath a foot full of plaits and wrinkles: these fish are
little, round, and outwardly white, smooth and beetle-shelled like an
almond shell; inwardly they are great bellied, bred as it were of moss
and mud; they commonly stick in the keel of some old ship. Some say
they come of worms, some of the boughs of trees which fall into the
sea; if any of them be cast upon shore they die, but they which are
swallowed still into the sea, live and get out of their shells, and
grow to be ducks or such like birds(!)."

It would be curious to know what could give rise to such an absurd belief.

SPERIEND.

_Note for London Topographers._--

"The account of Mr. Mathias Fletcher, of Greenwich,
for carving the Anchor Shield and King's Arms
for the Admiralty Office in York Buildings, delivered
Nov. 2, 1668, and undertaken by His Majesty's command
signified to me by the Hon. Samuel Pepys, Esq.,
Secretary for the Affairs of the Admiralty:

L s. d.

"For a Shield for the middle of the
front of the said office towards the Thames,
containing the Anchor of Lord High Admiral
of England with the Imperial Crown
over it, and cyphers,