30 OCTOBER 1909, Page 17

"PIXYING."

[To THE EDITOR OF THZ " SPECTITOR.1

SIR,—A correspondent in your issue of October 16th asks for a suggestion why the exceptional method of saving corn to which he alludes should be called "pixying." May it not be a survival from the fairy mythology of his man's forbears, who used to ascribe any sudden and strange phenomenon in their rural environment to the pranks, benevolent or mis- chievous, of those nimble little folk, otherwise called "pixies," especially, it appears, in the West Country ? Hence the expeditious method of " " a cut crop by the simple manipulation described may still be called locally "pixying " it, though the pretty romance has long since vanished from