The world’s not my oyster
QUESTION If an oystercatcher succeeds in catching an oyster, how does it open the shell? The oystercatcher, with its long red beak and sturdy legs and stark black-and-white plumage, is one of the most distinctive birds on our shoreline.
It’s been known by many names, including mussel picker, oyster plover, sea pilot, sea magpie and sea pie. It’s one of a group of waders forming the family haematopodidae, which has a single genus, haematopus.
english naturalist Mark Catesby was the first to use the term ‘oystercatcher’ in relation to the North American species h. palliatus, which appeared in 1731 in his Natural history Of Carolina, Florida And The Bahama Islands.
he derived the name from his observation of what he supposed to be its feeding habits — in fact, oystercatchers don’t eat oysters.
The bird’s diet varies with location. Species occurring inland feed on earthworms and insect larvae. The diet of coastal oystercatchers is varied: estuarine dwellers consume bivalves, gastropods and polychaete worms, while rocky shore oystercatchers prey on limpets, mussels, gastropods and chitons. Other prey items include echinoderms, fish and crabs.
Oystercatchers exhibit ‘resource polymorphism’, with different populations utilising their heavy bill in a variety of manners. ‘Stabbers’ feed by jabbing their laterally compressed bill tips in between the valves of a mussel’s shell, while ‘hammerers’ crack open mussel shells by pounding on them.
Some eurasian oystercatchers are worm specialists with pointed tweezer-like bill tips for extracting their prey. Oystercatchers also exhibit sexual dimorphism: females have longer, heavier bills than males.
Mrs T. Pryor, Salcombe, Devon. QUESTION The name Vanessa was coined by Jonathan Swift. What other popular personal names were created by authors? WheN Jonathan Swift wrote the autobiographical poem Cadenus And Vanessa (1713) about his relationship with his lover esther Vanhomrigh, he created the name by taking the ‘Van’ of her last name and combining it with ‘essa’, a pet form of esther. It wasn’t until actors Michael redgrave and rachel Kempson chose the name for their daughter in 1937 that it became truly popular.
In The Merchant Of Venice, Shakespeare named Shylock’s daughter Jessica, and he is thought to have derived the name from the biblical Iscah.
Shakespeare also created Miranda for his heroine in his play The Tempest (1611), derived from Latin mirandus, meaning ‘admirable, wonderful’, but it did not become popular until the 20th century.
Claims that he created Olivia for Twelfth Night (1600) are incorrect — the name has been known since the 13th century.
Sir Walter Scott invented the name Cedric for Cedric of rotherwood, a character in his 1820 novel Ivanhoe. he based the name on Cerdic, an AngloSaxon king from the 6th century.
The name was later popularised by Frances hodgson Burnett in 1886, when her Little Lord Fauntleroy was called Cedric errol.
Fiona was invented by Scottish poet James McLeod, who used it in his Ossian cycle of poems. It is thought to be an Anglicisation of the Gaelic fionn, meaning ‘white’ or ‘fair-haired’.
Sir Philip Sidney invented the name Pamela for a character in his late-16th century work The Countess Of Pembroke’s Arcadia, published posthumously. It is thought to be a combination of Greek words meaning ‘all’, and meli for ‘honey’. Sidney was also the first to use the name Stella, derived from ‘star’ in Latin. he used it in his 1580s sonnet sequence Astrophel And Stella. It was later made popular by Tennessee Williams in his 1947 play A Streetcar Named Desire. More recently, the name Arwen has become popular since the release of The Lord Of The rings films. It was created by author J.r.r Tolkien, and in his dictionary The Sindaric he claims to have created the name from an elvish prefix meaning ‘noble,’ and the suffix meaning ‘maiden’. The name has clear links with the Welsh language, in which ‘wen’ is a common suffix originally appended to the names of female saints in the sense of ‘holy’ or ‘blessed.’ Sian Leonard, Crosby, Lincs. QUESTION Where does the term ‘swashbuckling’ come from? FurTher to the earlier answer, 15th and 16th-century swordsmen did know how to parry with their swords.
historic treatises such as Liechtenauer 1389, Fiori dei Liberi 1410, MS 1.33 1295 and several others all teach clearly how to parry or block an attack using the sword and buckler.
It was the function of the sword, in war and civil conflicts, to defend as well as attack. If you couldn’t defend yourself, there was little point in learning to fight. The buckler was a small item which couldn’t be relied on to protect the whole body, so it was complementary to the sword.
Practitioners of historic martial arts today prove this by using these old techniques. It’s a myth that historic swordsmen were only capable of wielding heavy swords as bludgeons, as they didn’t. They studied the finer points of the art in great detail as these historic documents prove. Robert h. Wrightson, assistant instructor,
Sussex Sword academy, Brighton.