350 Trotter, English Names of American Birds. \oct 



spoken of as "osel" or " hosel-brit," and likewise by its Old 

 English Name of "Merle." Later it became "Ousel-cock" as in 

 the quaint ditty in Midsummer-Nights' Dream — 



" The ousel-cock, so black of hue, 



With orange-tawny bill, 

 The throstle with his note so true, 



The wren with little quill. 

 The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, 



The plain-song cuckoo grey, 

 Whose note full many a man doth mark, 



And dares not answer, nay; . . . . " 



"Mawys" or "Mavis" as a dialectic name has lasted down to 

 the present day in the counties of East England. It seems curious 

 that it was not transferred to any American thrush notably the 

 Wood Thrush. "Osel" is clearly the parent word of the modern 

 "Ousel" and in this latter form is still applied to an allied species 

 of the European Blackbird — the Ring-ousel (T. torquatus), as well 

 as to a distinct, though related, family — the Dippers or Water 

 Ousels (Cinclidse). 



Without doubt the word "Thrasher," applied to the birds of 

 the American genus Toxostoma, is a variant of "Thrush" and 

 "Throstle," for we find "Thrushel" and "Thrusher" as variants 

 in the Provincial English dialects. The term "Thrasher" occurs in 

 Barton's 'Fragments' (1799), and Wilson also uses the name as a 

 vernacular in his account of the Brown Thrush or "Ferruginous 

 Thrush" {Toxostoma 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-coloured Thrush" (I, 28). In the South it is known here and 

 there as the "Sandy Mocker" and formerly as the "French Mock- 

 ingbird," 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 certain contempt by the English 

 colonists. There is a curious suggestion 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 vernacular name. 



In a metrical vocabulary, supposedly of the fourteenth century, 

 "sparrow" appears in its modern form; likewise "larke," "pye" 



