_Hipperswitches_ (Vol. ii., p. 280.).--I saw a story which was copied into
the _Examiner_ of Oct. 5. from "NOTES AND QUERIES," entitled "Sir Gammer
Vans." The correspondent who has furnished {397} you with the tale says
that he is ignorant of the meaning of "hipper switches." Now hipper is a
word applied in this part of the country to a description of osiers used in
coarse basket making, and which were very likely things to be bound up into
switches. A field in which they grow, near the water side, is called a
"hipper-holm." There is a station on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway,
which takes its name from such a meadow. My nurse, a Cornwall woman, tells
me _hipper_ withies fetch a higher price than common withies in her
country.