160. _Vermin, Payments for Destruction of, and Ancient Names._--Can you
afford me any information as to the authority (act of parliament, or
otherwise,) by which churchwardens in old times paid sums of money for
the destruction of vermin in the several parishes in England; and by
what process of reasoning, animals now deemed innocuous were then
thought to merit so rigorous an extirpation?
In some old volumes of churchwardens' accounts to which I have access, I
find names which it is impossible to associate with any description of
vermin now known. Perhaps some of your correspondents may be able to
identify them: such as _glead_, _ringteal_, _greas'head_, _baggar_. My
own impression as to the latter name was, that it was only another way
of spelling badger; but as, in the volume to which I refer, the word
_bowson_ occurs, which the historian Dr. Whitaker pronounces to be
identical with that species of vermin, my surmise can scarcely be
correct.
J. B. (Manchester).
161. _Fire unknown._--Leibnitz (_Sur l'Entendement humain_, liv. i. §
4.) speaks of certain islanders to whom fire was unknown. Is there any
authentic account of savages destitute of this essential knowledge?