2'"i5.vi,i5o.,Noy,i3.'a80 NOTES AND QUERIES, 



401 



the snare in the evening twilight. This will ex- 

 plain the cockshoGt of the icood in the quotation 

 from Blount, and I trust all the difficulties of 

 your correspondent. I have not Dr. Richardson's 

 Dictionary at hand, or Nares, but I have a brief 

 note to this purpose on the pasgage in K. Eichard 

 III. in my late edition of Shakspeare. 



S. W. Sl^'GEB. 

 Miokleham. 



In the Hereforchldre Glossary the word cocTi- 

 shut is explained to be " a contrivance for catch- 

 ing woodcocks in an open glade or drive of a 

 wood, by means of a suspended net. In some 

 places, cockshut, from being an appellative, has 

 become a proper name, the meaning being ex- 

 tinct." In Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and 

 Provincial Words, the following article occurs : — 

 " Cockshut, a large net, suspended between two 

 poles, employed to catch, or shut in, woodcocks, 

 and used chiefly in the twilight. Hence perhaps 

 it came to be used for ttvilight ; but Kennett says, 

 ' when the woodcocks shoot or take their flight in 

 woods.' Florio has the latter sense exclusively, 

 in p. 79., ed. 1611." 



The history of this word seems to be, that it 

 originally meant a folding net which was spread 

 across an opening in a wood, and was used for en- 

 closing or shutting in woodcocks. The places where 

 these nets were used sometimes acquired the name 

 of Cockshut ; whence such proper names as that 

 of Cockshut Hill, near Reigate, mentioned by 

 Jatdee ; and as woodcocks were thus' caught in 

 the evening, " cockshut time," or " cockshut light," 

 meant twilight. L. 



Mr. E, Smirke, in the 5th volume of the Journal 

 of the Archceological Institute, pp. 118 — 120., has 

 clearly shown that a cookshete, cokshot, or cock- 

 roade (Lat. " volatile woodcocoorum ! ") was " a 

 contrivance for catching woodcocks in a glade by 

 a suspended net," and that the word was applied 

 indifferently to the net or to the place where it 

 was used. He says that — 



" Serjeant Manning, who was the first to suggest a 

 satisfactory explanation of tlie word, considers that it 

 owes its last sj'Uable to tlie bird's habit of lying ' con- 

 eealed or xliut during the day,' or of taking ' their flight 

 or ihooi at twilight.' Chas. Knight, in his recent edition 

 of Shalcsjiere, ' inclines to think it equivalent to cockroost 

 time, the hour at which the cock goes to rest,' Unfor- 

 tunately for this last conjecture, the cock referred to is a 

 bird of crepuscular habits, that sleeps by day and flies by 

 night. My friend the learned serjeant is more correct in 

 hi8 niUural history of the bird, but I doubt whether ho 

 can show any warrant for the use of the word ' shut ' or 

 ' shoot' in the sense he assigns to theni, and I suspect the 

 woodcock is a fowl more shot at than .sliooting." 



So far Mr. Kmirko. I can, however, supply 

 the recjuired warrant for the Serjeant's second 

 meaning, i. e. flight. The gunners on the river 



Ouse and the West Norfolk fens call the time 

 when wildfowl take their evening flight " shut- 

 sele" or '■'■shotsele." Sele is the A.-S. sael, season ; 

 and wheat-sowing, barley-sowing, hay-harvest, &c. 

 are called in Norfolk "wheatsele," " barleysele,'' 

 "haysele," &c. The flight of the woodcock I have 

 frequently heard gamekeepers describe as " scud- 

 ding." I once heard this term in Pembrokeshire 

 and several times in Norfolk. 



Without doubt the surname Cockshott or Cock- 

 shut came from the first of the name living near 

 or keeping a " volatile woodcoccorum " for catch- 

 ing '*gaUos silvestres." E. G. R. 



The following extracts from Allies' Antiquities 

 and Folh-Lore of Worcestershire (2nd ed. pp. 283 

 — 4.) will probably be interesting to Jatdee : — 



" In the parish of Great Malvern there are. . . Cockshoot, 

 Cockshute, or Cockshut Orchard, Lane, and Farm, at the 

 Link. ... It is said that the name ' Cock-shoot ' probablj' 

 designates the place where springes or nets were set to 

 catch woodcocks*; and that the syllable ' shoot' means 

 the hole or gap in the bank or hedge through which the 

 woodcocks either ran or fled into the springe or net. Kow 

 it must be observed that the springs of water from North 

 Malvern Hill run by the spot in question, and it was a 

 very likely place in days of yore to be frequented by 

 woodcocks. Still, however, spouts or cocks for water- 

 shoots, vulgo shuts t. at the bottom of hills, banks, or 

 slopes, may possibly have given rise to some of the names 

 in question ; for instance, there is Cockshute, by Dorms- 

 ton Hill ; Cockshoot Hill, in Hadsor, near Droitwieh ; 

 Cockshut t Hill, in Lulsley; and Cockshoot Hill, at 

 Shelsley Beaucharap. But, as these localities, even if 

 they have or had spouts, would be equally favourable for 

 woodcocks, it is probable that the first-mentioned deriva- 

 tion is, in some such cases, the primary one; and, when 

 Shakspeare speaks of a ' Cockshut time ' §, he probably 

 refers to the twilight, when woodcocks || run or fly out 

 of the covers, and were caught at the shoots in the 

 springes or nets." 



The " Cockshoot Hill " (and wood) at Shelsley 

 Beauchamp, Worcestershire, is on the boundary 

 of Lord Ward's AVitley estate ; and, curiously 

 enough, on the boundary of his Himley estate 

 (Staffordshire), there is a second Cockshoot Hill, 

 and wood, distant twenty miles from the former. 



Near to Ellesmere, in Shropshire, is a chapelry, 

 called Cockshut. Cuthheet Bebe. 



* See the Journal of the Archaological Institute, vol. v. 

 pp. 118. to 121. 



t The peasantry call those channels made to carry rain- 

 water off ploughed lands " land shuts," and natural rills 

 " water-shuts." Thus a spring with a spout at the font 

 of a hill or slope would, in common language, be a " cock- 

 shut." There is one on the side of the Malvern road, 

 just above Cockshut Farm. 



J Cockshut is also a personal name. See Nichols's 

 llisloiy (if Leicestershire, vol. iv. part 2., p. 524. 



§ Itichard 111., Act V., Scene 3. 



il Almost all classes In the country, when spoakFng of 

 woodcocks, scarcelj" ever use the prefix. 



