12 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE COMMON CRAYFISH. 
having a common English name: for it already, should 
naturalists call it by another appellation derived from a 
foreign tongue ? 
The origin of the common name, “‘ crayfish,” involves 
some curious questions of etymology, and indeed, of his- 
tory. It might readily be supposed that the word “‘cray” 
had a meaning of its own, and qualified the substantive 
“fish ””—as “jelly” and “cod” in “jellyfish” and “codfish.” 
But this certainly is not the case. The old English 
method of writing the word was ‘‘crevis” or ‘‘ crevice,” 
and the ‘‘cray” is simply a phonetic spelling of the syl- 
lable ‘‘ cre,” in which the ‘‘e” was formerly pronounced 
as all the world, except ourselves, now pronounce that 
vowel. While “fish” is the ‘‘ vis” insensibly modified 
to suit our knowledge of the thing as an aquatic 
animal. 
Now “‘crevis” is clearly one of two things. Either it 
is a modification of the French name ‘“ écrevisse,” or of 
the Low Dutch name “ crevik,” by which the crayfish is 
known in these languages. The former derivation is that 
usually given, and, if it be correct, we must refer “cray- 
fish” to the same category as ‘‘ mutton,” “beef,” and 
“pork,” all of which are French equivalents, introduced 
by the Normans, for the ‘‘ sheep’s flesh,” “ox flesh,” and 
“swine’s flesh,” of their English subjects. In this case, 
we should not have called a crayfish, a crayfish, except 
for the Norman conquest. 
On the other hand, if ‘‘ crevik” is the source of our 
ce 
