I. THE ROBIN. 9 



Norman-French names of birds, and ascertain 

 them with the most affectionate research — 

 never despising even the rudest or most pro- 

 vincial forms : all of them will, some day or 

 other, giv£ you clue to historical points of 

 interest. Take, for example, the common 

 EngHsh name of this low-flying falcon, the 

 most tameable and affectionate of his tribe, 

 and therefore, I suppose, fastest vanishing 

 from- field and wood, the buzzard. That 

 name comes from , the Latin " buteo," still 

 retained by the ornithologists; but, in its 

 original form, valueless, to you. But when 

 you get it comfortably corrupted into Pro- 

 vengal "Busac," (whence gradually the French 

 busard, and our buzzard,) you get from it the 

 delightful compound " busacador," "adorer of 

 buzzards" — meaning, generally, a sporting 

 person ; and then you have Dante's Bertrand 

 de Born, the first troubadour of war, bearing 

 witness to you how the love of mere hunting 

 and falconry was already, in his day, degrading 

 the miHtary classes, and, so far from being a 

 necessary adjunct of the noble disposition of 

 lover or soldier, was, even to contempt, showing 

 itself separate from both. 



