186 The NeiD Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



cattle, which are entered in the marksman's books, are said to be 

 "wood-roughed." A cow without horns is still called a " not 

 cow" {knot), exactly corresponding to the American " humble " 

 or " bumble cow," that is, shorn, illustrating, as Mr. Akerman 

 notices,* Chaucer's line, — 



" A not hed had he, with a brown visage." 



In the Forest, too, as in all other districts, a noticeable point 

 is the number of words formed by the process of onomatopoieia. 

 Thus, to take a few examples, we have the expressive verb to 

 " scroop," meaning to creak, or grate, as a door does on rusty 

 hinges ; and again the word " hooi," applied to the wind 

 whistling round a corner, or through the key-hole, making the 

 sound correspond to the sense. It exactly represents the harsh 

 creaking, as the Latin susurnis and the yp-iOvpiafia of Theo- 

 critus reflect the whisperings of the wind in the pines and 

 poplars, resembling, as Tennyson says, " a noise of falling 

 showers." Again, such words as " clocking," " gloxing," 

 applied to falling, gurgling water ; " grizing," and " snag- 

 gling," said of a dog snarhng ; " whittering," or "whickering" 

 — exactly equivalent to the German wiehcrn — of a young colt's 

 neighing; " belloking," of a cow's lowing — are all here com- 

 monly used, and are similarly formed. Names of animals take 

 their origin in the same way. The wry-neck, called the 

 "barley-bird" in Wiltshire, and the "cuckoo's mate" and 

 *' messenger " elsewhere, is in the Forest known as the 

 *' weet-bird," from its peculiar cry of " weet," which it will 

 repeat at short intervals for an hour together. So, too, the 



* Glossary of the Provincial Words and Places in Wiltshire, pp. 37, 38. 

 London, 1842. 



