MISTLETOE THRUSH 229 



(c/. coq de brossailes) or paunies (cf. paons) ? ' Lapron ' 

 I take to be Hare (Lepus). 



There is no doubt about the MS. use of drift = 

 knight is a good illustration of it.* 



Mr. Thomas Southwell, a well-known Norfolk natur- 

 alist, found that the Mistle-Thrush was called in some 

 districts of East Anglia ' Drain," the same name by 

 which the bird is known in France, and he asked Newton 

 if he knew the origin of the word. 



March 5, 1902. 



MY DEAR SOUTHWELL, 



I don't know what is the origin of Draine 

 except it be as Vieillot, in the passage I have transcribed, 

 says from the bird's cry " tre, tre, tre." Littre does not 

 attempt any derivation, but Holland compares it with 

 the Spanish Drena. It has long been the published name 

 of the Mistletoe Thrush in French books, and no doubt 

 Bewick quoted it from Buffon. Buffon, by the way, 

 is just as explicit about the birds feeding on the berries 

 and bearing some of its common names from the fact as 

 Vieillot is, and it is the same in various Italian dialects, 

 which all come from the local name of the Mistletoe. 

 Had not Mr. Engelheart ' missled," he would have 

 caught it pretty severely from me, but I am thankful 

 I have not had to administer the punishment, for in my 

 reply I stuck simply to the points he had raised. 



Wilkin had prepared me for some discrepancies 

 between the different editions of Browne's ' : V.E.," but 

 those you notice between that of 1646 and the others 

 are in this case of no importance. In Wilkin's reprint 

 he has the Greek word eb/3o/Dog, which is clearly 

 wrong, for it ought to be igofiopos as it stands in 

 Browne's first edition. 



I saw Wilkin's note about the European species of 

 mistletoe, but that does not signify as the Viscum album 

 admittedly grows in Greece and was doubtless the 

 original " tos." 



* Letter to J. A. Harvie- Brown, March 20, 1878. 



