ssibility of
fish origin absolutely excluded.

SPECIAL FEATURES

We have also many surnames due to physical resemblances not extending
beyond one feature. Birdseye may be sometimes of local origin, from
ey, island (Chapter XII), but as a genuine nickname it is as natural
as the sobriquet of Hawkeye which Natty Bumppo received from the
Hurons. German has the much less pleasing Gansauge, goose-eye; and
Alan Oil de larrun, thief's eye, was fined for very reprehensible
conduct in 1183. To explain Crowfoot as an imitative variant of
Crawford is absurd when we find a dozen German surnames of the same
class and formation and as many in Old or Modern French beginning with
pied de. Cf. Pettigrew (Chapter XXI) and Sheepshanks. We find in the
Paris Directory not only Piedeleu (Old Fr. leu, wolf) and Piedoie
(oie, goose), but even the full Pied-de-Lievre, Professeur a la
Faculte de droit. The name Bulleid was spelt in the sixteenth century
bul-hed, i.e. bull-head, a literal rendering of Front de Boeuf.
Weatherhead (Chapter XIX) is perhaps usually a nickname

"For that old weather-headed fool, I know how to laugh at him."

(Congreve, Love for Love, ii. 7.)

Coxhead is another obvious nickname. A careful analysis of some of
the most important medieval name-lists would furnish hundreds of
further examples, some too outspoken to have survived into our
degenerate age, and others which are now so corrupted that their
original vigour is quite lost.

Puns and jokes upon proper names are, pace Gregory the Great and
Shakespeare, usually very inept and stupid; but the following lines by
James Smith, which may be new to some of my readers, are really
clever--

Men once were surnamed from their shape or estate
(You all may from History worm it);
There was Lewis the Bulky, and Henry the Great,
John Lackland, and Peter the Hermit.
But now, when the door-plates of Misters and Dames
Are read, each so constantly varies
From the owner's trade, figure, and calling, Surnames
Seem given by the rule of contraries.

Mr. Box, though provoked, never doubles his fist,
Mr. Burns, in his grate, has no fuel;
Mr. Playfair won't catch me at hazard or whist,
Mr. Coward was wing'd in a duel.
Mr. Wise is a dunce, Mr. King is a whig,
Mr. Coffin's uncommonly sprightly,
And huge Mr. Little broke down in a gig,
While driving fat Mrs. Golightly.

Mrs. Drinkwater's apt to indulge in a dram,
Mrs. Angel's an absolut