Things are often named from animals. Crane, kite, donkey-engine, monkey-wrench, pig-iron, etc., are simple cases. The crane picture is so striking that we are not surprised to find it literally reproduced in many other languages. The toy called a kite is in French cerf volant, flying stag, a name also applied to the stag-beetle, and in Ger. Drachen, dragon. It is natural that terrifying names should have been given to early fire-arms. Many of these, e.g., basilisk, serpent, falconet, saker (from Fr. sacre, a kind of hawk), are obsolete—
"The cannon, blunderbuss, and saker,
He was th' inventor of and maker."
(Hudibras, i. 2.)
More familiar is culverin, Fr. couleuvrine, a derivative of couleuvre, adder, Lat. coluber—
"And thou hast talk'd
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin."
(1 Henry IV., ii. 3.)
One name for a hand-gun was dragon, whence our dragoon, originally applied to a kind of mounted infantry or carbineers. Musket, like saker (v.s.), was the name of a hawk. Mistress Ford uses it playfully to her page—
"How now, my eyas[31]-musket, what news with you?"
(Merry Wives, iii. 3.)