NAMES OF ANIMALS, FROGS, AND FISH 261 



they meant small, and nowadays when we speak 

 of any very small fish we say minnow. Alewife 

 in old English was applied to the women, usually 

 very stout dames, who kept alehouses. The corpu- 

 lency of the fish to which the same term is given 

 explains its derivation. 



The pike is so named from the sharp, pointed 

 snout and long, slim body, bringing to mind the 

 old-time weapon of that name; while pickerel 

 means doubly a little pike, the er and el (as in cock 

 and cockerel) both being diminutives. Smelt was 

 formerly applied to any small fish and comes, per- 

 haps, from the Anglo-Saxon smeolt, which meant 

 smooth the smoothness and slipperiness of the 

 fish suggesting the name. 



Salmon comes directly from the Latin salmo, a 

 salmon, which literally meant the leaper, from 

 salire to leap. Sturgeon, from the Saxon was 

 siiriga, literally a stirrer, from the habit of the 

 fish of stirring up the mud at the bottom of the 

 water. Dace, through its mediaeval forms darce 

 and dars, is from the same root as our word dart, 

 given on account of the swiftness of the fish. 



Anchovy is interesting as perhaps from the 

 Basque word antzua, meaning dry ; hence the dried 

 fish ; and mullet is from the Latin mullus. Herring 

 is well worth following back to its origin. We 

 know that the most marked habit of fishes of this 

 type is their herding together in great schools or 

 masses or armies. In the very high German heri 



