NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 409 



We cannot always agree with Prof. Newton in his suggested 

 etymologies. Take the word " Daker-hen," for example, a 

 provincial name for the Corncrake or Landrail.* He will have it 

 (p. 131) that it refers to the unsteady flight of the bird — though 

 it is no more unsteady than that of the Moorhen, Water-rail, 

 Spotted Crake, and other short-winged ralline forms — for he 

 says " to dacker " (Frisian dakkern, M. Dutch daeckeren) is in 

 use in Lincolnshire, and signifies to stagger, totter, or hesitate. 

 But surely " daker-hen " is merely " t'acre-hen," the north 

 country pronunciation of " the acre hen," cognate with the 

 Scandinavian ager hona, that is "field-hen." See i The Zoologist,' 

 1883, p. 229. 



When noticing the supposed derivation of the name Bustard 

 (p. 62), reference might have been made to the statement of Dr. 

 Muffett that these birds are 



" So called for their slow pace and heavy flying, or as the Scots term 

 them, gusetards,\ that is to say, slow geese." He adds the interesting 

 remark that " in the summer, towards the ripening of corn, I have seen 

 half a dozen of them lie in a wheatfield fatting themselves (as a deer will 

 doe) with ease and eating, whereupon they grow sometimes to such a 

 bigness, that one of them weigheth almost fourteen pouud." — ■ Health's 

 Improvement,' 4to, 1655, p. 91. 



Dr. Muffett, whose book was published long after his death, 

 which took place in 1590, was a pensioner of the Earl of Wilton, 

 and lived at Bulbridge in Wiltshire. This curious testimony to 

 the abundance of the Bustard in Wilts in the time of Elizabeth, 

 has been generally overlooked by writers on British Birds, even 

 by the author of ' The Birds of Wiltshire,' wherein, nevertheless, 

 an excellent account of this species is given. Apropos of Bus- 

 tards, it may be noted that the statement (p. 65) to the effect that 

 Macqueen's Bustard " has occurred once even in England," now 

 requires modification, since a second example has recently been 

 procured on the Yorkshire coast (Zool. 1893, p. 21), though 

 probably this had not been recorded at the time the article 

 " Bustard " in this Dictionary 'had been passed for press. We 

 note it in view of a forthcoming second edition. 



* It is to be found mentioned in Merrett's ' Pinax,' 1667, where it is 

 quoted as a Northumbrian name (p. 183). 



f So called by Hector Boece in 1527, and Bishop Leslie in 1578. 



