Names that Puzzle Cockneys
The Cockney in the country is perplexed by the countryman's names for birds and beasts; especially by names denoting gender. The countryman seems to the townsman to be particular in drawing his distinctions, and his precise way of referring to an ox or a steer, a bull-calf or a heifer, is found very puzzling, particularly to ladies—who hold all cows to be bulls. And when the countryman speaks of a wether-sheep, a barrow-hog, of a hummel-stag, he is speaking in mysteries. Even the terms of the poultry-yard—cock, cockerel, pullet, fowl, hen, or capon—are not always understood.
Custom grants some creatures only one sex. A cat is usually a she, and a hare nearly always. To be precise, as to hares, one should refer to the male as a jack and a female as a jill, the terms buck and doe being more properly applied to rabbits and to fallow deer; red deer are distinguished by the terms stag and hind. Ferrets in some parts are known as hobbs and gills. Rats, like badgers and hedgehogs, may be boars and sows. The males of otters, stoats, weasels and foxes are dogs, but only the female fox is a vixen. Rams are sometimes "tups." The terms bulls and cows are applied to many kinds of animals, such as elands, moose, whales, elephants, and the seals; but the young seals are pups, and gather in rookeries. The terms for birds offer some difficulties; all common wild duck are mallards, to distinguish them from widgeon, teal and so on; but while the male may be called either the mallard or the drake, the female is always a duck. Grouse are cock and hen; blackcock, blackcock and greyhen; and all woodcock are 'cock.
No less confusing to the Cockney in the country are the terms for quantities of game. He speaks of a "brace of rabbits," and the gamekeeper's eyebrows rise at the term. Two rabbits are a "couple"—when they are not a pair. Two pheasants, two partridges, or two grouse are a "brace," three forming a "brace and a half" or a "leash"; but we speak of a "couple" of woodcock, snipe, duck, or pigeons.
When the gamekeeper speaks of "pairs" of birds he is referring to birds that have paired; but a cock and a hen pheasant remain a cock and a hen. Some confusion arises from the terms applied to gatherings of birds or beasts. Young families of birds are usually "broods," and families of animals "litters." One speaks of a brood (or pack) of grouse, a covey (or pack) of partridges, a bevy of quail, a nid of pheasants (meaning a young family), a wing of plover, a wisp of snipe, a team of duck, a company of widgeon, a flock of sparrows, rooks, or pigeons, a skein or gaggle of geese, a herd of swans or deer, and a sounder of wild pigs. The gamekeeper knows better than any one else just what is meant by a litter of cubs. There is a distinction between a big "rise" of pheasants and a good "flush." If a thousand pheasants fly up at the same time it is a big rise, but not a good one, because few can be shot. A good flush does not mean necessarily that there are many birds, but that they rose, or were flushed, so that most of them offered shots—a few at a time.
