Chapter VIII

). Spark, earlier Sparhawk, is the sparrow-hawk. It is found already in Anglo-Saxon as a personal name, and the full Sparrowhawk also exists. Tassell is a corruption of tiercel, a name given to the male peregrine, so termed, according to the legendary lore of venery--

"Because he is, commonly, a third part lesse than the female." (Cotgrave, )

Juliet calls Romeo her "tassell gentle" (ii. 2). Muskett was a name given to the male sparrow-hawk.

"Musket, a lytell hauke, mouchet." (Palsgrave.)

Mushet is the same name. It comes from Ital. moschetto, a little fly. For its later application to a firearm cf. falconet. Other names of the hawk class are Buzzard and Puttock, i.e. kite--

"Milan, a kite, puttock, glead"

(Cotgrave);

and to the same bird we owe the name Gleed, from a Scandinavian name for the bird

"And the glede, and the kite, and the vulture after his kind." (Deut. xiv. 13.)

To this class also belongs Ramage--

"Ramage, of, or belonging to, branches; also, ramage, hagard, wild, homely, rude"

(Cotgrave)--

and sometimes Lennard, an imitative form of "lanner," the name of an inferior hawk--

"Falcunculus, a leonard."

(Holyoak, Lat. Dict., 1612.)

Povey is a dialect name for the owl, a bird otherwise absent from the surname list.

BEASTS

Among beast nicknames we find special attention given, as in modern vituperation, to the swine, although we do not find this true English word, unless it be occasionally disguised as Swain. Hogg does not belong exclusively to this class, as it is used in dialect both of a young sheep and a yearling colt. Anglo-Sax. sugu, sow, survives in Sugg. Purcell is Old Fr. pourcel (pourceau), dim. of Lat. porcus, and I take Pockett to be a disguised form of the obsolete porket--

"Porculus, a pygg: a shoote: a porkes."

(Cooper.)

The word shoote in the above gloss is now the dialect shot, a young pig, which may have given the surname Shott. But Scutt is from a Mid. English adjective meaning short--

"Scute, or shorte, curtus, brevis"

(Prompt. Parv.)--

and is also an old name for the hare. Two other names for the pig are the northern Galt and the Lincolnshire Grice--

"Marcassin, a young wild boare; a shoot or grice." (Cotgrave.)

Grice also represents le gris, the grey; cf. Grace for le gras ( Chapter XXII ). Bacon looks like a nickname, but is invariably found without the article. As it is common in French, it would appear to be an Old French accusative to Back, going back to Germanic Bacco ( Chapter XIII ). Hinks is Mid. Eng. hengst, a stallion, and is thus identical with Hengist ( Chapter XX ). Stott means both a bullock and a nag (