392 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



(3). That "russet" originally meant red or reddish, no one 

 can dispute. That in later times it may mean some other colour 

 is very likely equally beyond contention. The point which, it 

 seems to me, if I may so say, that Mr. Harting has missed is, 

 what did it mean in Shakespear's time. No later writer is here 

 any authorky. Mr. Harting shows that Skinner in 1671, more 

 than fifty years after the poet's death, had only one meaning for 

 it — red, or at least reddish. If it can be shown that "russet" 

 meant grey in Shakespear's time, the case will be half established. 

 Failing that, none of the other authors cited help it ; indeed, many 

 of them tell against it. The quotation from Mant evidently refers 

 to the rusty tint put on by dead-ripe grass; Gisborne's " russet" 

 fern is the plant turning reddish-brown; Somervile's "russet" is 

 the colour of the Hare's head, which in England is certainly not 

 grey, whatever the Daw's be, and so on of the rest. Milton 

 indeed has his "russet lawns" in contradistinction to "fallows 

 grey." 



But now comes the consideration of " russet," not as a colour 

 but as a woven stuff, whether of woollen, cotton, or what, matters 

 not; though no doubt the fabric was originally named from its 

 colour, and when, as certainly happened, the original meaning of 

 the word was changed, and some other dye was used for the cloth, 

 another adjective would naturally be applied to indicate its 

 colour. Thus we have the expressions " grey russet" and " russet 

 grey," meaning grey stuff; but evidence is, as I have said, 

 wanting* to show that this use existed in Shakespear's day.f 



(4). Here I would submit that Mr. Harting' s interpretation of 

 the passage is at fault. " Many in sort" means many in company 

 — the use of sort in this sense is common enough, and instances, 



* There is the doubtful exception quoted from Turbervile, in which there 

 is nothing to show whether "russet pyle" refers to the surface resembling 

 the fabric "russet" and not to the colour. Certainly such Stags' horns as 

 I have seen "in the velvet" cannot strictly be called grey in the modern 

 sense. 



f We have exactly the converse in scarlet, which comes from a Persian 

 word signifying cloth, and because that cloth was of a particular colour, the 

 word came to mean the colour. So with "plaid." Originally a piece of 

 stuff used to wrap round the body, which stuff was woven in a checked 

 pattern (tartan), plaid has come to mean anything that shows a pattern 

 with crossing stripes, 



