300 BIRD NAMES 



appears as 'spink,' an assimilation to the Welsh pine, 

 which means both ' a chaffinch ' and also, as an adjective, 

 'gay' or 'fine.' Perhaps this word survives in Shake- 

 speare's ' pink of courtesy ' (Romeo and Juliet, n. iv. 1. 62), 

 and in our term ' pink of perfection.' The same idea of 

 smartness and prettiness is enshrined in the title given to 

 a bird very different in size and habits to the finches, 

 namely, the jay, a name altered in spelling only from the 

 French gai, in allusion to the gay plumage. 



Habit and movement are indicated as often as form or 

 colour. Thus the sparrow is 'the flutterer,' from a 

 Teutonic base spar, signifying vibration or rapid motion ; 

 the swallow probably is ' the mover to-and-fro.' ' Hawk ' 

 is 'the holder or seizer,' being a shortened form of the 

 Anglo-Saxon hafoc, which we retain as ' havoc ' in a more 

 general application. ' Nightingale ' is more obscure, the 

 connection with 'gallant' not lying on the surface. It 

 means ' the singer of the night,' being compounded of 

 nihte, genitive case of the Anglo-Saxon niht, and galan, 

 to sing, akin to the Old French galer, to rejoice, preserved 

 in our own words ' gala ' and ' regale.' The present parti- 

 ciple of galer was galant, ' gallant,' a word with which we 

 should not find it convenient to dispense. 



A duck means a diver, the bird that ducks under water ; 

 but when a swain applies the term to the object of his 

 affection, he uses unconsciously a totally different vocable, 

 which appears in Danish and kindred languages as dukke, 

 a doll. The specific Anglo-Saxon name for a duck was 

 ened; to denote the male bird the masculine terminal 

 reich was added, signifying rule or authority. ' Endrake ' 

 was the old English word which we have shortened into 

 drake, literally the lord of the duck. So gans became 



