NOTES AND QUERIES. 429 



as Rooks, Starlings, and Larks, certainly do not seem to travel at an 

 abnormally high rate of speed. I myself have repeatedly calculated the 

 flight as not exceeding forty to fifty miles an hour, and often less. It is 

 possible, however, that on nearing land and the end of their journey, final 

 or temporary, they descend from a high altitude where, for hours together, 

 a much greater rate of travel has been maintained, — slacking speed, or, if 

 I may use the expression, shutting off steam, as they near the terminus. 

 Of course these remarks apply to birds only crossing the North Sea, or 

 making long and continuous journeys in the spring and autumn. Our 

 small summer guests, the Chats, Warblers, and Flycatchers, to a great 

 extent move south by a hedge-to-hedge migration, in slow stages, till they 

 reach the south or south-east coast, crossing the English Channel, again 

 to resume the land journey across sunny France and sunnier Spain to 

 the land of endless summer. — John Cordeaux (Great Cotes House, 

 R. S. 0., Lincoln). 



Origin of the terms "Cob" and "Pen." — In your article on this 

 subject (pp. 372 — 374), the word "cob" is taken to refer solely to the 

 " knob " at the base of the upper mandible, and in that case may have 

 meant merely a projection. The Swan, therefore, would be so called from its 

 most characteristic feature. It is worth noticing, however, that some of the 

 provincial glossaries explain a V cob " as a stone-horse as contrasted with a 

 gelding or mare; and certainly "cob," in some English dialects = testi- 

 culus. I think, however, your explanation is probably the right one. 

 With regard to the derivation and original meaning of " cob," the question 

 is very difficult. Of course cob or cop is the word answering to knopf, and 

 both these words have probably gone through the same development. The 

 words mean (1) a bowl; (2) ahead; (3) a prominent or projecting point: 

 the question is, what is the order of the development of these meanings. 

 Kluge, sub voce knopf, seems to think that there may have been for knopf a 

 Germanic meaning of head ; although haupt, the philological equivalent of 

 caput and of our word head, is the true 0. German word. A very probable 

 theory is that the word originally meant a bowl, and then came to be em- 

 ployed for head (cf. testa and tete). In any case we find in M.E. copp for 

 top ; coppod (capped = cristatus) of snakes. The French word coiffe, which 

 probably came into France through the Italian cuffia, points to the existence 

 of an old German word " kupfe," "head covering," from which word it 

 sprang ; and this fact shows that this use of the word is very old. The word 

 cob in English seems sometimes to take the metaphorical meaning of round 

 and projecting ; sometimes of something large. In Welsh we have cop for 

 a head ; and in Lancashire cop is used for a low hill. The well-known 

 Dutch kopje of the Boers in South Africa is, of course, the same word. 

 " Cob " was used in Hoccleve (1420), (see Murray's Diet. s.v. " Cob ") for 

 a leading man, as we say, a " big " man. A cob loaf would seem to mean 



