322 



COCKIE-LEEKIE 



COCK OF THE ROCK 



fall in come into the main. The main is fought 

 for a stake upon each battle, and so much for the 

 main, or the winner of the most battles in the 

 main ; while the byes have nothing to do with the 

 main, and are usually fought for smaller sums. A 

 middling size is considered the best, and from 3 Ib. 

 6 oz. to 4 Ib. 8 oz. is the medium. Cocks some- 

 times fight in silver spurs, but more often in steel. 

 In a Welsh main the cocks fight until only one 

 is left alive. By the Act of 1849, a penalty of 5 

 may be levied on any person keeping fighting- 

 cocks, letting a cockpit, or otherwise connecting 

 himself with cock-fighting, for every day that he 

 shall so act. 



Strange to say, cock-fighting was a specially 

 sanctioned annual sport of public schools, the 

 schoolmaster receiving a regular tax from the 

 boys on the occasion, which was on Shrove Tuesday. 

 It was so in the days of Henry II. ; and in his 

 Scholemaster (1570) Roger Ascham announced his 

 intention, never fulfilled, of writing a ' Book of 

 the Cock-pitte,' as ' a kinde of pastime fitte for a 

 gentleman.' As late as 1790 the income of the 

 schoolmaster of Applecross in Ross-shire was 

 formally said to be composed of salary, fees, and 

 cock-fight dues. And Hugh Miller, in My Schools 

 and Schoolmasters, gives an account of the yearly 

 cock-fights in the grammar-school of Cromarty 

 about 1812. The yet more barbarous custom of 

 throwing sticks at cocks fastened to stakes, was 

 also long practised at Shrove-tide. The slang cock- 

 shy is a survival. 



Cockie-leekie is in Scotland a kind of soup 

 made of a fowl boiled with leeks. 



Cock Lane Ghost. In the year 1762 

 London was thrown into a state of extraordinary 

 excitement by the reported existence of a ghost in 

 the house of one Mr Parsons, in Cock Lane, Smith- 

 field. Strange and unaccountable noises were 

 heard in the house, and a luminous lady, bearing 

 a strong resemblance to one who, under the name 

 of Mrs Kemt, had once resided in the house, but 

 who had died two years before, was said to have 

 been seen. Dark suspicions as to Mr Kemt having 

 poisoned the lady were immediately aroused, and 

 were confirmed by the ghost, who, on being in- 

 terrogated, answered, after the fashion of the 

 spirits of our own day, by knocking. Crowds were 

 attracted to the house to hear the ghost, and the 

 great majority became believers. At length a plan 

 was formed by a few sceptics to ascertain the real 

 origin of the noises. Parson's daughter, a girl 

 eleven years of age, from whom they supposed the 

 sounds to proceed, was taken to another house by 

 herself, and threatened with the imprisonment 

 of her father in Newgate if she did not renew 

 the rappings that evening, the noises having 

 for some time been discontinued. She was dis- 

 covered to have taken a board with her into bed, 

 and when the noises took place, no doubt was 

 entertained that they had all along been produced 

 by similar methods. A prosecution was then 

 raised by Mr Kemt, and Parsons was condemned 

 to stand thrice on the pillory for imposture and 

 defamation. Among those who visited the house 

 was Dr Johnson, but it is not tme that, with all 

 his natural bent to easy belief in the supernatural, 

 he was one of the dupes of this miserable impos- 

 ture. Churchill's gross caricature of Pomposo's 

 credulity in his tiresome poem of over four thousand 

 lines, The Ghost, was mere false and malicious 

 slander, and deserved the payment that the burly 

 Johnson promised to give Foote upon his own stage 

 if he persisted in taking him off in the same way. 

 See A. Lang's Cock Lane and Common Sense (1894). 



Cockle ( Cardium ), a large and typical genus 

 of bivalve molluscs ( Lamellibranchs ). The thick, 



ribbed, heart-shaped, equal-valved shell, and the' 

 large knee-bent ' foot ' are characteristics well 

 known to every one. The shell is closed by two. 

 muscles ; the hinge has large teeth ; there are two- 

 minute respiratory siphons. About two hundred 

 living species are known, and have a very wide 

 distribution, though most abundant in the tropical 

 seas. They live freely and gregariously, generally 

 buried in the mud or sand. The foot is used for 

 burrowing, but by it the cockle can also jump a 

 few inches. C. edule is very largely eaten, and is 

 often sold in great quantities on the streets of 

 British towns. The fossil forms are very numer- 

 ous, and increase from the Silurian onwards. ( For 

 figure and structure, see BIVALVES.) 



Cockle, or CORN-COCKLE (GithagoAgros- 

 temma segetum), of which one species, a caryo- 

 phyllaceous annual weed, is common amongst 

 crops of grain, is a native of Europe or the west 

 of Asia, but is now found in cereal crops in. 

 almost all parts of the world. Its tall graceful 

 habit, and large lilac-purple flowers, make it one 

 of the most beautiful of corn-weeds ; its seeds are, 

 however, unwholesome, especially to fowls and 

 domestic animals, and thus the undesirableness of 

 its presence in crops is increased. A special sieve is- 

 employed for their removal in bad cases in Ger- 

 many. It is an annual plant, clothed with very 

 long hair ; with large, solitary, terminal lilac 

 flowers. The root, stem, leaves, and seed were 

 formerly used in medicine ; the seed is still some- 

 times sold in Germany under the name of Black 

 Cumin ( Schwartzkiimmel ). The corn-cockle is a. 

 very troublesome weed in some parts of Britain, 

 and is rare and almost unknown in others. 



Cockney, a familiar name for a Londoner, the 

 earlier meaning of which was a foolish, effeminate 

 person, or a spoilt child. The original meaning is- 

 very obscure, but in Chaucer cokenay ( a trisyllabic 

 word ) had much the same meaning as this." Pro- 

 fessor Skeat points out its obscurity of meaning in 

 two famous passages in Piers Plowman (x. 207), 

 and in the last stanza of the ' Tournament of 

 Tottenham ' in Percy's Beliques. The word occurs- 

 twice in Shakespeare ( Twelfth Night, IV. i. 15 ; 

 and Lear, II. iv. 123), and there with the meaning, 

 according to Schmidt, of a person who knows only 

 the life and manners of the town, and is conse- 

 quently well acquainted with affected phrases, but 

 a stranger to what every child else knows. The 

 French Pays de Cocagne, with which the word is 

 usually connected, denotes a Utopia an imaginary 

 land of luxurious abundance without labour. The 

 true origin of the word cockney has been much 

 debated. The explanation of Wedgwood, followed 

 by Skeat in his ' Errata,' connected it with the 

 French coquin, ' a rogue ; ' itself, according to 

 Littre and Scheler, derived through a Low Latin 

 coquinus from Latin coquus, ' a cook ' or ' kitchen- 

 scullion.' Diez doubted this, and assumed a con- 

 nection with the old Norse kok, the throat. But 

 according to Dr Murray, the word cockeneye or 

 cockenay means really cock's-egg, i.e. either simply 

 a hen's egg or a diminutive hen's egg ; then a 

 ' nestle-cock,' a mother's darling, a cockered or 

 pampered or effeminate person. 



Cock of the Plains. See GROUSE. 



Cock Of the Rock (Rupicola), a genus of 

 South American Passerine birds in the family of 

 CotingidiE or Chatterers, beside the Cotingas ( q. v. ) 

 and Pompadours, the Umbrella-bird (Cephalop- 

 terus), and the Bell-bird ( Chasmarhynchus ). The 

 bill is high and strong, the tail short and straight, 

 the sole naked, the feet are strong and stout. The 

 male is remarkable for a lofty, laterally compressed 

 crest. In the best-known species (E. crocea), from 

 Guiana and the north-east of Brazil, the male is 



