GNAT-CATCHER—GODWIT 365 
(Works, ed. Wilkin, iv. p. 319). The similar double use of the 
French Maringouin, for a gnat or mosquito and a small shore- 
bird (Descourtilz, Voyage @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 RepsTARts, though belonging to a 
very different Farnily (Mniotiltidx) from the rightful owner of the 
name. It has been revived of recent years in a wholly different 
sense for members of the genus Polioptila, 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 Polioptila is referred to the Family Sylviide (WARBLER), 
and the birds belonging to it were in 1837 called by Swainson 
(Classif. B. 1. p. 37) 
GNAT-SNAPPER, but the name has not become current in 
England. 
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. 
GODWIT, 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 davs (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, 1st week, i. p. 67, line 714) of 
a poem by Du Bartas; but the word thus rendered, is in the original (line 657) 
Bennaric, explained by French editors or commentators to mean a Lecquefigue or 
Ficedula (Fic-EATER), and by Bulfon and Rolland, who spell it Bennarie, referred 
to the OrroLaN ; but in neither case has it anything to do with the bird called 
Gnat or Knot in English. 
1 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 Alyoxépanos, Latin 
Aigocephalus, 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 wish 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 Zgocephalus was possibly the SNIPE, whose Goat-like bleating song has 
obtained for it in many countries such names as BLEATER, Chévre-volant, and 
others. Sundevall, however, suggests that the Alyoxédados of Aristotle is a 
miswriting for Alyo#i\as = Caprimulgus. 
