348 Trotter, English Names of American Birds. [oct* 



"rudduc" or "ruddock" which long continued to be its general 

 English name and is probably still alive in local dialects. The word 

 appears as a variant of the modern "ruddy," refering no doubt to the 

 russet of the bird's breast. The earliest recorded instance of the 

 use of the popular epithet "robin," which as a word of endearment 

 has been transferred to many different birds thoughout the English 

 speaking w T orld, occurs in the Nomina Avium of an English vocab- 

 ulary of the fifteenth century where the name appears as "robynet 

 redbreast," literally "little robin redbreast." Our American 

 Robin was known to the early southern colonists as the "Fieldfare" 

 and is so termed by Catesby ("The Fieldfare of Carolina," Vol. I, 

 29). The bird has many of the qualities of the Fieldfare, and like 

 its British congener came from the north in autumn, scattering over 

 the cleared lands in loose flocks. William Bartram (Travels, 290) 

 speaks of it as the "Fieldfare or robin redbreast," and Kalm men- 

 tions it under the latter name (English Trans., II, 90). Our 

 familiar name "robin" is thus a contraction of the "robin redbreast" 

 of old English speech. 



In the Nomina Avium of /Elfric the cuckoo occurs as "geac." 

 In some provincial dialects it is still called a "gowk," a survival of 

 the little altered Anglo-Saxon name. "Cuckoo" or "Cuckow" 

 (the latter an earlier form of the name and given as such by Catesby) 

 is undoubtedly derived through later Norman speech (French 

 coucou; Italian cucco or cue ulo; old English cuccu). The German 

 name kuckuk or koekoek, the Danish kukker or gjog, and the 

 Swedish gok are clearly allied to the Anglo-Saxon geac or goivk, all 

 being undoubted variants expressive of the bird's voice, and the 

 same is true of "cuckoo" and its variants. 1 The colonists were not 

 deceived in giving to the American species its rightful name, though 

 Catesby may have been the first to bestow it. 



"Crow" appears in iElfric's vocabulary as crawe; "kite" as 

 glida and glede, the last name continuing down to the fifteenth 

 century. The Anglo Saxon staern or staer (later stare) has become 

 the modern "starling." 



A manuscript in the Royal Library at Brussels, of eleventh 



1 To call a man a "gawk" (simpleton) appears equivalent to calling him a 

 " cuckoo," a term of no uncertain meaning in the old days. 



