ORIGIN 7 OF NAME 291 



of mimicking anything it liked, imitantes omnia 

 piece. 



u Pica loquax certd dominum te voce saluto, 

 Si me non videas esse negabis avem" 



It took the form of "pyot" in Scotland, where 

 the oyster-catcher, which is so like it in plumage, 

 so unlike it in character, is still called the sea-pyot, 

 of pyanot in Northumberland, of pynot in Lanca- 

 shire. " I saigh," so ran the Lancashire dialect, 

 the Lancashire spelling, the Lancashire belief, in 

 the year 1775, "I saigh two rotten pynots (hong 

 'um), that wur a sign of bad fashin, for I heard 

 my gronny say houd oss leef o' seen two owd 

 Harries oss two pynots." As for "mag," the 

 other half of the name, it was given as a term 

 of familiarity, probably also of endearment, half 

 felt and half pretended ; pretended, in order to 

 avert the evil consequences which might result 

 from any expression of the opposite, just as the 

 Greeks, by way of disarming the Furies, called 

 them the "kindly goddesses," or, as they dubbed 

 the ill-omened left hand, the "well-named." Mag 

 is short for Madge or Margaret, which, in its 

 turn, comes from the Latin margarita, a pearl. 

 The original form of the magpie's name was 



