PROVINCIAL NAMES OF CERTAIN BIRDS. 13 



word lava, which signifies lark, and also bird in general, as if the 

 Lark was the typical bird in Iceland ; perhaps lava is connected 

 with lavy, which is one of the names of Guillemots in St. Kilda. 

 If so, we have an illustration of the fact that closely allied bird- 

 names designate different birds in different languages. Lark is 

 traced to the Anglo-Saxon word lawerce. Its remoter origin is, 

 I believe, unknown. 



Those who have wandered through the environs of Edinburgh 

 know the woods to the south of Blackford Hill, which, with the 

 return of May, the Cuckoo reanimates with mellow notes. At 

 the base of the range of the Pentland Hills, Cuckoos are not 

 uncommon. In that locality they place their eggs in the nests 

 of Meadow-Pipits, and the young Cuckoos check the numerical 

 increase of those birds. " You breede of the Gowk you have ay 

 but one song " is a word of caution addressed to persons who 

 always harp on one string. Goivk appears to be a word of the 

 same origin as gawk — a simpleton or a clumsy person — and 

 gawky. Gauche, and even cuculus and cuckoo, may be derived 

 from the same root as gowk. That root, I believe, is not known, 

 but, from the meanings of the derivatives, we may deduce the 

 meaning of the root to be left — the contrary of right. The 

 Cuckoo may have received the name gowk because it was sup- 

 posed to be so clumsy that it could not build a nest. An allusion 

 to its annual reappearance in spring may be found in the selec- 

 tion of the first day of April as All Fools' Day, and the expression 

 " Hunt the Gowk," and the custom to which that expression 

 refers, may contain an allusion to the alleged practice of pro- 

 spective or possible foster-parents who are said to hunt adult 

 Cuckoos from the vicinity of their nests. We are reminded by 

 the custom of those games in which certain Australian tribes 

 imitate the movements of wild animals. 



From a shady dell watered by a small affluent of the Teviot, 

 I have often heard the cooing of Wood-Pigeons. They are gene- 

 rally distributed throughout the southern counties of Scotland, 

 in wooded localities, and " especially near the Moorfoot Hills, 

 where they formerly nested (and perhaps still nest) in scores on 

 the low branches of young larches and Scotch firs. In autumn 

 they disappear from that locality. Their food consists chiefly 

 of the seeds of docks and charlock, and of clover-leaves " (A. E. 



