Things by Their Right Names

[petal]

THINGS BY THEIR RIGHT NAMES
The sportsmen of the middle ages invented a peculiar kind of language, with which it was necessary to be acquainted when speaking of things belonging to the chase. Different kinds of beasts, when going together in companies, were distinguished each by their own particular epithet, which was in some way descriptive of the nature or habits of the animal to which it was applied; and to have made a wrong use of one of these would have subjected him who made the mistake to undisguised ridicule; indeed, such is still the case, and to use the word dog, when sporting language would have that animal called a hound, would be an offence which the ears of a sportsman would not tolerate, and of which it would be no palliation to argue that, though every dog is not a hound, still, every hound is a dog.
Of the epithets applied to companies of beasts in past times several are in use at the present day, though the greater part have passed away from us; or if they have not entirely done so, they are not all universally employed, though perhaps every one of them might still be found in existence if sought in the different counties of England. Of those which we daily apply we are at a loss to account for the origin in many cases, though no doubt when first employed the application seemed natural and descriptive enough; but as words are continually undergoing change in their spelling, or are subject to become obsolete or repudiated because old fashioned, we come, in time, no longer to recognise their source.
The following list will show what were those invented in the middle ages and what we retain. There was said to be a pride of lions; a lepe of leopards; a herde of harts, of bucks, and of all sorts of deer; a bevy of roes; a sloth, of bears; a singular of boars; a sounder of wild swine; a doyft of tame swine; a route of wolves; a harms of hoses; a rag of colts; a stud of mares; a pace of asses; a baren of mules; a team of oxen; a drove of kine; a flock of sheep; a tribe of goats; a skulk of foxes; a cete of badgers; a richesse of martins; a fesynes of ferrets; a huske, or down of hares; a nest of rabbits; a clowder of cats, and a kindle of young cats; a shrewdness of apes, and a labour of moles. Also, of animals when they retired to rest, a hart was said to be harbored, a buck lodged, a roebuck bedded, a hare formed, a rabbit set. Two greyhounds were called a brace, and three a leash, but two harriers or spaniels were called a couple. We have also a mute of hounds for a number, a kennel of raches, a litter of whelps, and a cowardice of curs.
This kind of descriptive phraseology was not confined to birds and beasts and other of the brute creation, but extended to the human species and their various natures, propensities, and callings, as shown in the list below, in which the meaning of the epithets is more obvious than in many of the foregoing.
Here we have: a state of princes; a skulk of friars; a skulk of thieves; an observance of hermits; a subtiltie of sergeants; a safeguard of porters; a stalk of foresters; a blast of hunters; a draught of butlers; a temperance of cooks; a melody of harpers; a poverty of pipers; a drunkenship of cobblers; a disguising of tailors; a wandering of tinkers; a fighting of beggars; a ragful (a netful) of knaves; a blush of boys; a bevy of ladies; a nonpatience of wives; a gagle of women and a gagle of geese. As applied to inanimate things, there was a cluster of grapes, a cluster of nuts, a caste of bread, &c.
The cluster of grapes and of nuts we are well acquainted with, but the caste of bread is quite gone, probably because bread is no longer baked in the same way as formerly, for by the word caste is meant that whole quantity of bread which was baked in a tin with divisions in it, or in a set of moulds all run together, and in that way the word is used as of something cast in a mould, as we say of metal. No doubt there was as much reason in all the terms when they were invented, and, as to the use of them, we are as rigorous as ever where we have them at all. Who would dare to call two horses anything bat a pair when they are harnessed to a carriage, though they may be two in any other situation, and although four horses are four, let them be where they will. Then, two pheasants are a brace, two fowls are a pair, and two ducks are a couple, and so we might go on with an endless number.