The advocates for a Celtic origin of the name of these islands are perhaps not aware that--
"Through the intercourse which the Phoenicians, by means of their factories in the Persian Gulph, maintained with the east coast of India, the Sanscrit word _Kastira_, expressing a most useful product of farther India, and still existing among the old Aramaic idioms in the Arabian word _Kasdir_, became known to the Greeks even before Albion and the British Cassiterides had been visited."--See Humboldt's _Cosmos_, "Principal Epochs in the History of the Physical Contemplation of the Universe," notes.
[Footnote 7: His want of information in this matter can only be referred to the jealousy of the Phoenicians depriving the Greeks, as afterwards the Romans, of ocular observation.]
_Wooden Tombs and Effigies_ (Vol. ix., p. 62.).--There are two fine recumbent figures of a Lord Neville and his wife in Brancepeth Church, four miles south-west of Durham. They are carved in wood. A view of them is given in Billing's _Antiquities of Durham_.
_Tailless Cats_ (Vol. ix., p. 10.).--In my visits to the Isle of Man, I have frequently met with { 112} specimens of the tailless cats referred to by your correspondent SHIRLEY HIBBERD. In the pure breed there is not the slightest vestige of a tail, and in the case of any intermixture with the species possessing the usual caudal appendage, the tail of their offspring, like the witch's "sark," as recorded by honest Tam o' Shanter,
In fact, it terminates abruptly at the length of a few inches, as if amputated, having altogether a very ludicrous appearance.
The breed of cats without tails is well known in the Isle of Man, and accounted by the people of the island one of its chief curiosities. These cats are sought after by strangers: the natives call them "Rumpies," or "Rumpy Cats." Their hind legs are rather longer than those of cats with tails, and give them a somewhat rabbit-like aspect, which has given rise to the odd fancy that they are the descendants of a cross between a rabbit and cat. They are good mousers. When a perfectly tailless cat is crossed with an ordinary-tailed individual, the progeny exhibit all intermediate states between tail and no tail.