ENGLISH NAMES OF AMERICAN BIRDS—TROTTER. 509 
account of the brown thrush or “ ferruginous thrush” (7 oxostoma 
rufum) as he calls it, both of which facts are clear evidence as to the 
early current use of this common name for the species in question. 
Catesby figures the bird under the title “ fox-colored thrush ” (I, 28). 
In the South it is known here and there as the “ sandy mocker ” and 
formerly as the “ French mockingbird,” this last from the fact that 
its song was considered inferior to that of the true mockingbird 
(Mimus polyglottos)—all things French being regarded with a cer- 
tain contempt by the English colonists. There is a curious sugges- 
tion of the throstle’s song in the song of our brown thrasher, a fact 
also noted by Wilson, and this may have given rise to the current ver- 
nacular name. 
In a metrical vocabulary, supposedly of the fourteenth century, 
“ sparrow ” appears in its modern form; likewise “larke,” “ pye ” 
(the magpie, “ mag ” being a contraction of “ magot ” or “ madge,” a 
feminine name formerly bestowed upon this bird), “ revyn” (raven), 
“ parthryd,” and “quale.” “Jay” also appears in its present day 
spelling and with its Latin equivalent Graculusque, which may be 
the origin of our modern word “ grackle.” “Jay” is from old 
French “ gai” equivalent to “ gay ” (plumage). 
In a Nominale, or list of words, of fifteenth century date we find 
“wagsterd” (wagtail), “nuthage” (nuthatch), and “buntyle” 
(bunting). In a curious pictorial vocabulary, also of the fifteenth 
century, “ kingfisher” appears as “kynges-fychere” and ‘“ wood- 
pecker” as “ wodake” or “ woodhock.” Our “ redstart” evidently 
received its name by suggestion from a very different bird of the 
Old World (Ruticilla phenicurus). Tt is so called by Catesby 
(I, 67). “Start” is from Anglo-Saxon “steort,” a tail. “ Tit- 
mouse” has been transferred to various American species of the 
family (Catesby figures the “crested titmouse,” I, 57), the prefix 
“tit? meaning small. “Mouse” is from Anglo-Saxon mdse, a 
name, according to Skeat, for several kinds of small birds, and not 
to be confounded with the mammal of the same name. Hence, the 
plural “ titmouses,” not “ titmice,” is the proper form, though usage 
has established it otherwise. “ Shrike ” is another name transferred 
from European to allied American species. The name probably had 
its origin in the voice of this bird or of some thrush, and later be- 
stowed upon the members of the Laniide (see Newton, Dict. of Birds, 
843). “Martin” (and its older form “ Martlet”) was evidently a 
nickname applied to a European swallow (Chelidon urbica) and 
given by the colonists to our species of the genus Progne. Bartram 
calls the bird “ The great purple martin.” 
“ Blackbird,” applied to certain American species of Icteride, is 
a name suggested purely by color. Catesby early gave to our 
Agelaius phaniceus its more nearly correct title of ‘“ Red-wing’d 
