"CONINGER" OR "CONINGRY."
(Vol. vii., p. 182.)
The Latin word for a rabbit is cuniculus, as is shown in the following couplet of Martial:
"Gaudet in effossis habitare cuniculus antris:
Monstravit tacitas hostibus ille vias."—xiii. 60.
The rabbit appears to have been originally peculiar to Spain, Southern France, and the adjoining islands. Strabo (iii. 2. § 6.) says that it is found nearly over the whole of Spain, and in the Balearic islands; and that it reaches as far as Massilia. Polybius (xii. 3.) likewise states it to be a native of Corsica. It was unknown to the Greeks, and is not mentioned by Aristotle in his works on natural history (see Camus, Notes sur l'Histoire des Animaux d'Aristote, p. 278.); nor does it ever occur in the Æsopian fables, although the hare is frequently introduced. Hence it had no native Greek name; and Polybius borrows the Latin word, calling it κύνικλος (compare Athen., ix. p. 400.). Strabo uses the periphrasis of "burrowing hares," γεώρυχοι λαγιδεῖς. Ælian, again, employs the Latin name, which he considers to be of Iberian origin (De Nat. Anim., xiii. 15.). If this be true, the sense of subterranean passage, which cuniculus also bears, is secondary, and not primary (compare Plin. Nat. Hist., viii. 81.).
The language of Varro de Re Rust. (iii. 12.) likewise shows that the rabbit was in his time peculiar to Spain, and had not been introduced into Italy. The meaning of the Hebrew word Saphan, which is translated cony in the authorised version of the Old Testament (Lev. xi. 5.; Deut. xiv. 7.; Ps. civ. 18.; Prov. xxx. 26.), has been fully investigated by biblical critics and naturalists. (See Bochart's Hierozoicon, vol. ii. pp. 409-429., ed. Rosenmüller; Winer, Bibl. Real-Wörterbuch, in Springhase; Penny Cyclopædia, in Hyrax.) It is certainly not the rabbit, which is not a native of Syria and Palestine: but whether this ruminant quadruped, which lives in the rocks, is the jerboa, or a species of hyrax, or some other small edible animal of a like description, is difficult to determine.
From the manner in which Strabo speaks of Spain and the Balearic islands being infested by large numbers of rabbits, it would appear (as Legrand d'Aussy remarks, Vie privée des Français, tom. ii. p. 24.) that the ancients did not eat its flesh. The rabbit is now so abundant in parts of the south of France, that, according to the same author, a sportsman in the islands near Arles who did not kill a hundred, would be dissatisfied with his day's sport. A Provençal gentleman, who in 1551 went out to kill rabbits with some of his vassals, and three dogs, brought home in the evening not less than six hundred.
From the Latin cuniculus have been formed, according to the proper analogy, the Italian coniglio, the Spanish conéjo, and the French conil, sometimes modified into conin (see Diez, Roman. Gramm., vol. ii. p. 264.). From the old French conin was borrowed the English coning or conig, afterwards shortened into cony: and from this word have been formed conigar and coningry or conigry, for rabbit-warren (see Halliwell's Dict., in Conig). Conillus, for a rabbit-warren, occurs in Ducange; conejár is the Spanish term.
The Germans, like the English, had no native name for the rabbit; an animal not indigenous in their country. Hence they borrowed the French name conin, which they altered into kanin; and have since formed the diminutive kaninchen. In Suabian, the form used is küniglein. See Adelung in v. The Dutch word is konÿn.
The rabbit was probably introduced into England from France. Query: When did that introduction take place? Also, when did the later term "rabbit" supersede the old name cony? and what is the etymology of rabbit? The French lapin, which has supplanted the old word conin, is said to be formed from lepinus, an adjective of lepus.
L.
Your solution of the etymology of this word, as coming from Coney-borough, is no doubt correct: but I apprehend the last syllable has a more specific derivation. On the opposite sides of the Lough of Belfast, there are two localities in which this old English word is preserved. This district was, as you are aware, colonised by English settlers about 1590 A.D., when large grants were made to Sir Arthur Chichester, ancestor of the present Marquis of Donegal. At Carrickfergus, on the north side of the bay, there is a spot called the Connyberry, which is a corruption of "Coneyborough;" but on the opposite side, at Holyward, there is a populous rabbit-warren, known as the "Kinnegar;" which I take to be the conynger or coningeria about which your correspondent asks.
J. Emerson Tennent.