STAFFORDSHIRE AND DORSET 3 It is interesting to compare also the arms of the old Dorset family of Gollop of Strode and Bowood (near Bridport): Gollop, gules, on a bend or a lion pasmnr guardant M5/e. The similarity of names and arms can hardly be accidental. The Galpin arms appear to be the earliest, as having a definite meaning, being a play on the name, while the others imitate them. The crests of Galpin and Gilpin are both a play on the second syllable of the name, pen and pine, viz., a plume of feathers proper, and a pine—branch, vert (or, more modern, a pineapple). Crests being of later origin than escutcheons are not of so much significance. A number of other names are also derived from Galpin, and when the ingenuity that has been shown in spelling a name of six letters in nearly Ioo different ways is considered it is remarkable that some branches of the family have still main- tained it in its original form. Another group settled at an early date in the south—west of England, the first mention I have come across in that neighbourhood being at Mosterton on the Dorset and Somerset borders, where Thomas Galpin gave land to the church of Mosterton (Dorset) A.D. I2 I 8. The name here is spelt Gaiperinus, Gaipinus, and Garpinus, all referring to the said Thomas. About seventy years later they appear in the Bridport records and must gradually have spread over the two counties, but mostly in Dorset. Much about the same time the name occurs in Surrey and Suffolk, so that by the year I3OO the - descendants of probably one man had spread all over England. This is nothing remarkable when compared with the way in which in modern times our colonial families have multiplied and dispersed themselves over vast continents. Later on most of these families seem to have died out or altered their names excepting in Dorsetshire, the name becoming distinctly a Dorsetshire one. About the year 1350 the Black Death or plague carried off a large part of the population of Europe, the mortality being estimated at two-thirds or three—fourths and even more in England, which might account for the dis- appearance of the name in part as entire families were wiped out, but I think the disappearance is greatly due to it being altered out of all recognition into such names as Kilpin, Gollop,