DECEMBER 299 



foxes breaking away amid a bouquet of pheasants, baskets 

 were produced from the game cart and laid out on the 

 sunny side of a hedge. The rest may be imagined : we 

 had plenty of cold provender, and wanted no more. The 

 day and its proceedings remain among the brightest of 

 memories, so delightful was the zest of the gray-haired 

 parsons, no whit inferior in keenness to that of the 

 student still in his 'teens, so refreshing was it to see 

 their thoughtful host and neighbour providing for their 

 amusement. 



N.B. This day's bag was not recorded in the sporting 

 newspapers. 



LXXVI 

 Fertile matter for speculation and controversy has been 



stirred in the columns of the Field by a dis- 



. . J Bird Names 



cussion upon the meaning and origin of the 

 names of some of our common birds. Many of these are 

 obvious enough, such as golden-eye, black-cap, water-hen, 

 etc. ; but others, having their origin in a dim antiquity, 

 have become so worn and altered by use as to suggest 

 ideas quite different to those intended to be conveyed. 

 Take, for instance, the names wheatear and redstart, each 

 applied to a bird of which the colour of the tail or rump is 

 the most conspicuous feature in flight. The wheatear cares 

 nothing for wheat, and it has no perceptible ear, that is, no 

 ear to attract notice; but its white tail gleams with peculiar 

 distinctness as it flits from stone to stone, wherefore the 

 Saxon swineherds named it hwit cers, white rump. So 

 the bird with the fiery red posterior was designated in 

 Anglo-Saxon, read start, red tail. ' Finch ' means what 

 is smart and pretty. In provincial English the name 



