, leopard, is in some cases for the Ger. Liebhart;
and Griffin, when not Welsh, should no doubt be included among
inn-signs. Oliphant, i.e. elephant--

"For maystow surmounten thise olifauntes in gretnesse or weighte of
body" (Boece, 782)--

may be a genuine nickname, but Roland's ivory horn was also called by
this name, and the surname may go back to some legendary connection of
the same kind. Bear is not uncommon, captive bears being familiar to
a period in which the title bear-ward is frequently met with.

It is possible that Drake may sometimes represent Anglo-Sax. draca,
dragon, rather than the bird, but the latter is unmistakable in
Sheldrick, for sheldrake. As a rule, animal nicknames were taken
rather from the domestic species with which the peasantry were
familiar and whose habits would readily suggest comparisons, generally
disparaging, with those of their neighbours.

BIRDS

Bird names are especially common, and it does not need much
imagination to see how readily and naturally a man might be nicknamed
Hawke for his fierceness, Crowe from a gloomy aspect, or Nightingale
for the gift of sweet song. Many of these surnames go back to words
which are now either obsolete or found only in dialect. The peacock
was once the Poe, an early loan from Lat. pavo, or, more fully, Pocock

"A sheaf of pocok arwes, bright and kene,
Under his belt he bar ful thriftily."

(A, 104.)

The name Pay is another form of the same word. Coe, whence Hedgecoe,
is an old name for the jackdaw--

"Cadow, or coo, or chogh (chough), monedula" (Prompt. Parv.)--

but may also stand for cow, as we find, in defiance of gender and sex,
such entries as Robert le cow, William le vache. Those birds which
have now assumed a font-name, such as Jack daw, Mag pie, of course
occur without it as surnames, e.g. Daw and Pye--

"The thief the chough, and eek the jangelyng pye" (Parliament of
Fowls, 305).

The latter has a dim. Pyatt.

Rainbird is a local name for the green woodpecker, but as an
East-Anglian name it is most likely an imitative form of Fr. Rimbaud
or Raimbaud, identical with Anglo-Sax. Regenbeald. Knott is the name
of a bird which frequents the sea-shore and, mindful of Cnut's wisdom,
retreats nimbly before the advancing surf--

"The knot that called was Canutus' bird of old."

(Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 368.)

This historical connection is most probably due to folk-etymology.
Titmus is of course for tit-mouse