GULL-CATCHERS. 267 
The gull is said to have derived its name from its 
voracious habits, #e, from “ gwlo—dnis,” a gormandizer. 
Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt, are all from 
the Anglo-Saxon “wighan, gewiglan,’ that by which any 
one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares suggests that gull is 
from the old French gucller. 
Malvolio asks :— 
“Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d, 
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest, 
And made the most notorious geck* and gull, 
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why.” 
Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1. 
In the same play we find the word “gull” occurring 
several times in a similar sense, as in Act ii. Sc. 3, and 
Act iii. Sc. 2; and Fabian, on the entry of Maria (Act ii. 
Sc. 5), exclaims, — 
“ Here comes my noble gull-catcher !” 
When sharpers were considered as bird-catchers, a gull 
was their proper prey.{ “ Gull-catchers,” or “ gull- 
gropers,” therefore, were the names by which, in Shake- 
speare’s day, these sharpers were known. 
“The gull-groper was generally an old gambling miser, 
% Geck—a laughing-stock. According to Capel, from the Italian ghezzo. Dr. 
Jamieson, however, derives it from the Teutonic geck, jocus. 
+ See also Othello, Act v. Sc. 2, and Timon of Athens, Act ii, Se. 1. 
