GNA T-CA TC HER— GOD U VT 365 



(JForls, ed. Wilkin, iv. p. 319). The similar double use of the 

 Fi-ench Maringouin, for a gnat or mosquito and a small shore- 

 bird (Descourtilz, Voyage d'un Natural, ii. p. 249), is an analogous 

 case, and would tend to shew that the supposed derivation of Knot 

 from Cnut or Canute may be dismissed as a fable ; but 



GNAT-CATCHER was the name applied by Richardson in 1831 

 (Faun. Bor.-Am. ii. p. 223) to birds of the genus Setophaga, com- 

 monly called in North America Redstarts, though belonging to a 

 very different Family {Mniotiltidai) from the rightful owner of the 

 name. It has been revived of recent years in a wholly different 

 sense for members of the genus PoUoptila, so called {Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1855, p. 11) from their characteristic hoary -grey colouring, whereof 

 three species are found in the United States, while some half-dozen 

 others, or perhaps more, are natives of the Neotropical Region. 

 The genus PoUoptila is referred to the Family Sulviidse (Warbler), 

 and the birds belonging to it were in 1837 called by Swainson 

 {Classif. ^. i. p. 37) 



GNAT-SNAPPER, but the name has not become current in 

 Eno'land. 



'O* 



GOATSUCKER, one of the most common names of the Night- 

 jar, having an equivalent in almost every European language, and 

 thereby testifying to the widespread belief in the malpractice it 

 attributes to its unfortunate bearer. 



GOD WIT, a word of unknown origin,^ the name commonly 

 applied to a marsh-bird in great repute, when fattened, for the 

 table, and formerly abundant in the fens of Norfolk, the Isle of Ely, 

 and Lincolnshire. In Turner's days (1544) it was worth three 

 times as much as a Snipe (see Fedoa), and at the same period Belon 



Grosart, The Divine Workes and Weakes, 5th day, Ist week, i. p. 67, line 714) of 

 a poem by Du Bartas ; but the word thus rendered, is in the original (line 657) 

 Bennaric, exjilained by French editors or commentators to mean a Bccquefigue or 

 Ficedula (Fig-eater), and by Buffon and Holland, who spell it Bennaric, referred 

 to the Oktolan ; but in neither case has it anything to do with the bird called 

 Gnat or Knot in English. 



^ In the absence of any plausible derivation of this word or explanation of its 

 meaning it may be allowable to point out that the Greek AiyoK^cpaXos, Latin 

 ^gocephalus, signifying Goathead, was long ago the name of some bird, and that 

 Belon, who knew the Greek of his day, believed some species of Limosa to be 

 thereby understood. Philologists, on whose province I have no wash to intrude, 

 may perhaps shew that the word Goathead, if ever used in this country, was capable 

 of being corrupted into Godwit. At the same time it may be remarked that the 

 original AUgoceinlialus was possibly the Snipe, whose Goat-like bleating song has 

 obtained for it in many countries such names as Bleatee, Chevi-e-volant, and 

 others. Sundevall, however, suggests that the AlyoKecpaXos of Aristotle is a 

 miswriting for At70^TjXas — Capriinulgus. 



