The nails are cut, the cuttings carefully wrapped in paper, and placed
in the hollow of a pollard ash, concealed from the birds; when the paper
decays, the warts disappear. For this I can vouch: in my own case the
paper did decay, and the warts did all disappear, and, of course, the
effect was produced by the cause. Does the practice exist elsewhere?

_Charm for Wounds._--Boys, in his _History of Sandwich_, gives, (p.
690.) the following from the Corporation Records, 1568: a woman examined
touching her power to charm wounds who--

"Sayesth that she can charme for fyer and skalding in forme as
oulde women do, sayeng 'Owt fyer in frost, in the name of the
Father, the Sonne, and the Holly Ghost;' and she hath used when
the skyn of children do cleve fast, to advise the mother to
annoynt them with the mother's milk and oyle olyfe; and for
skalding to take oyle olyfe only."

W. DURRANT COOPER.


_Fifth Son._--What is the superstition relating to a fifth son? I
should be glad of any illustrations of it. There certainly are instances
in which the fifth son has been the most distinguished scion of the
family.

W.S.G.


_Cwn Wybir, or Cwn Annwn_--_Curlews_ (No. 19. p. 294).--The late
ingenious and well-informed Mr. William Weston Young, then residing in