184 DICTIONARY OF NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



PovEY : The BARN-OWL. (Gloucestershire.) 



Praheen Cark : The HOODED CROW. (Ireland.) Signifies 

 the " hen crow." 



PRATINCOLE [No. 354]. The name first occurs in Pennant 

 (ed. 1776) as a rendering of Kramer's name Pratincola 

 (1756). 



Pridden pral. a west Cornwall name for the GREAT TIT- 

 MOUSE and BLUE TITMOUSE ; signifies " tree babbler." 



Prine: The BAR-TAILED GOD WIT. (Essex.) From its 

 habit of probing the mud for food (Swainson). 



Prinpriddle: The GREAT TITMOUSE. (Staffordshire.) 

 According to Poole's Glossary. Swainson also makes it 

 an equivalent of " Pridden pral " in Cornwall for the LONG- 

 TAILED TITMOUSE. 



Proud-tailor: The GOLDFINCH. (Midlands.) 



Provence Furzeling. Macgillivray's name for the DARTFORD 

 WARBLER. 



PTARMIGAN [No. 465]. The name is from the Gaelic 

 Tarmachan. Occurs in Willughby (1678) as " White Game 

 or White Partridge." Sibbald (1684) however called it 

 Ptarmigan, and he is followed by most subsequent authors. 

 According to Inwards it is a Scottish belief that the fre- 

 quently repeated cry of the Ptarmigan low do^ni on the 

 mountains during frost and snow indicates more snow and 

 continued cold. 



PucKERiDGE : The NIGHTJAR. (Hants.) Newton thinks it 

 is possibly connected with A. Sax. puca, a goblin or demon. 

 In Gilbert White's " Observations on Birds," published in 

 the "Naturalists' Calendar" (1795), it is related that in 

 Hampshire, where it sometimes goes by this name, " The 

 Country people have a notion that it is very injurious to 

 weanling calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at them, the 

 fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the name of 

 puckeridge.'''' In west Sussex and ^vest Surrey it becomes 

 " Puck-bird." 



PuETT. An obsolete Cheshire name for the LAPWING. 

 (Holland's " Glossary.") 



PUFFIN [No. 449]. The word is apparently a diminutive 

 (=puffing) and was possibly given at first to the young of 

 this bird, ^hich for long was known only by various local 

 names in different parts of the coast. The name would 

 therefore a]oply to the do^ny covering of the young birds, 

 e.g. a diminutive of "puff" or "puffy." The Welsh 



