THE RABBIT OR CONY 179 



and supposed to have been written in 1290; and " conigers " in 1292, 

 in Britton (see N. E. Diet.). 



Many borrowed Celtic forms occur, as in Welsh Owning - gaer, 

 where the latter part of the word is adapted in form to caer — castle 

 (N. E. Diet?). The Irish is coinicear, occurring in many forms in all 

 four provinces; the best known is Cunnigar or Kinnegar ; the most 

 corrupted are Nicker of Co. Limerick and Nickeres of Co. Tipperary 

 (Joyce). As stated above, none of the above names are earlier than 

 the Norman settlements (Westropp ; Joyce, in litt.). 



Riote or ryote is given by Harting {The Rabbit, 1898, 4) following 

 Halliwell {Diet. Arch, and Provincial Words, nth ed., 1889), as a third 

 name for the animal, on the authority of a passage in " MS. Bodl. 

 546," one of the MSS. of The Master of Game, by Edward, second Duke 

 of York (written 1406- 141 3). The passage has been modernised in 

 Baillie-Grohman's edition of 1909, 74, from which I quote here in 

 preference to the complete edition of 1904 :* — "Of conies I do not 

 speak, for no man hunteth them unless it be bishhunters (fur hunters) 

 and they hunt them with ferrets and with long, small hayes {i.e., nets). 

 Those raches {i.e., scenting hounds) that run to a coney at any time 

 ought to be rated saying to them loud, ' Ware riot, ware,' for no other 

 wild beast in England is called riot save the coney only." There is, 

 however, no evidence that the word riot was ever applied definitely 

 to the rabbit as a name, and the Master of Game himself uses only the 

 word cony elsewhere in his work {ed. cit. 18), so that some other 

 explanation must be found for the word riote. The expression " ware 

 riot " may mean merely " beware of brawling," in accordance with the 

 usual signification of riot ' as given by Skeat. This is borne out by the 

 fact that the cries of hounds in pursuit of an unusual quarry are 

 different from their ordinary ' music,' and may be noisier or more 

 riotous; and no animal is more likely to lead hounds to 'run riot' than 

 a rabbit. 



Local names (non-Celtic) : — Bun of Northumberland, Warwick, 

 Worcester, Yorkshire, Scotland, and Ireland, also used for the tail of a 

 hare or rabbit, as " Poor maukin . . . Cocks her bun in rude defiance of 

 his pow'r " (Davidson, Seasons, 1798, 272, in Dial. Diet?) ; bunny (or bonny 

 of Devon), a child's name in quite general use ; burrowing hare of 

 MacGillivray ; clargyman, often applied to black varieties, as in Cheshire 

 (the fur of black conies was worn by the clergy, see N. E. Diet.), 

 compare parson, a term widely in use, as in Somerset and Devon {Dial. 

 Diet.) ; grazier, i.e., a young one just going to feed on grass, used both 

 in England and Ireland (Coward and Oldham ; Dial. Diet. ; Joyce) ; 



1 The words are italicised by Baillie-Grohman, to signify that the matter was 

 originally contributed by "Master of Game "himself, and not merely translated, like 

 the greater part of the work, from the French of Gaston de Foix's Livre de Chasse. 



