THE NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 513 



Chough is akin to " Caw," and is therefore imitative. 



Jay (older spelling gay or gai) == a bird of gay plumage. 



Pie is imitative, and signifies " a chirper." It is probably 

 akin to Latin picus. 



Raven = Anglo-Saxon hraefn, probably connected with krap, 

 to make a noise ; cf. Latin crepare. The word has absolutely 

 nothing to do with ravenous, &c, which is akin to rapine. 



Rook — in Anglo-Saxon, hroc, " a croaker " — is imitative. 



Lark is a contraction of lavrock or laverock ; Anglo-Saxon, 

 lawerce. In Icelandic there is a word lae-wirki, " a worker of 

 guile," and it has been suggested that lawerce is another form of 

 this. Should this be correct, it would appear that the Lark 

 must for some reason have been a bird of ill-omen to our Anglo- 

 Saxon ancestors. 



Owl is imitative, and connected with Howl, which appears in 

 " howlet." 



Vulture = the tearer (Latin, vellere). 



Buzzard, formerly spelt busard, which comes through Low 

 Latin from the Latin buteo — a word used by Pliny to signify the 

 Sparrow-Hawk. 



Hawk, " the seizer." Root hab, as in German haben. 



Kite probably comes from a Teutonic root skot, " to shoot " 

 or " go swiftly " ; and the same root is seen in Scoter, and in the 

 American slang word "scoot." 



Falcon, so called from its sickle- (Lat. falx) shaped beak and 

 talons. 



Merlin comes, through the French, from the Latin merula, a 

 blackbird ; cf. merle. 



Osprey is a corruption of ossifragus, " the bone-breaker." 



Cormorant is a corruption of Gorvus marinus, " the sea- 

 crow." The Spanish name is Cuervo marino. 



Shag, so called from its crest. It is practically the same 

 word as the Scandivanian skagg, " a beard," or anything that 

 juts out. 



Gannet, "little goose." Root gan (as ingan-der) + diminu- 

 tive suffix -ET. 



Heron* is probably imitative of the bird's cry, and, in 



* The form hernshaiv is a variant of heronsew — a word still used pro- 

 vincially, and derived, like many other hawking terms, from the French. 



