GULL-CATCHERS. 
267 
The gull is said to have derived its name from its 
voracious habits, i.e., from “gulo—dnis ,” a gormandizer. 
Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt, are all from 
the Anglo-Saxon “ wiglian , gewiglian ,” that by which any 
one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares suggests that gull is 
from the old French guiller. 
Malvolio asks :— ; 
“ Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d, 
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest, 
And made the most notorious geek* and gull, 
That e’er invention play’d on ? tell me why.” 
Twelfth Night , Act v. Sc. 1. 
In the same play we find the word “ gull ” occurring 
several times in a similar sense, as in Act ii. Sc. 3, and 
Act iii. Sc. 2 ;-f- and Fabian, on the entry of Maria (Act ii. 
Sc. 5), exclaims,— 
“ Here comes my noble gull-catcher ! ” 
When sharpers were considered as bird-catchers, a gull 
was their proper prey.J “ Gull-catchers,” or “ gull- 
gropers,” therefore, were the names by which, in Shake¬ 
speare’s day, these sharpers were known. 
“ The gull-groper was generally an old gambling miser, 
* Geek —a laughing-stock. According to Capel, from the Italian ghezzo. Dr. 
Jamieson, however, derives it from the Teutonic geek, jocus. 
t See also Othello , Act v. Sc. 2, and Timon of Athens, Act ii. Sc. 1. 
X See D’lsraeli's “ Curiosities of Literature,” iii. p. 84. 
