Abstract
THIS book is strictly a dictionary, and on that account less interesting to turn over than Mr. Swainson's “Provincial Names of Birds,” published for the English Dialect Society in 1886, which also dealt to some extent with the folklore. Mr. Swann, however, claims to have added some three thousand names to those collected by his predecessor: he has evidently taken great pains, and deserves much credit for a handbook which will always be useful. We will make one critical remark only. If Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish, and Irish names are freely admitted to the list, why not Anglo-Saxon, which are at the roots of our own local names? “Enid,” for example, was the English word for a duck till the fifteenth century, but it is not here. Mr. Swann's work begins with Chaucer; but he might well search the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies for addenda to a second edition.
A Dictionary of English and Folk-Names of British Birds.
By H. Kirke Swann. Pp. xii + 266. (London: Witherby and Co., 1913.) Price 10s. net.
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A Dictionary of English and Folk-Names of British Birds . Nature 91, 346 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091346b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091346b0