Wood-hen

[f. WOOD sb.¹ + HEN sb.]

  1.  A female woodcock. Now rare.

  Formerly, like the woodcock, often rendered as a tenant’s due.

1281–2.  Yorkshire Inquis. (Yorks. Rec. Soc., 1892), I. 248. [One fowl at Christmas, called] le Wodehen.

1343.  in Blount, Fragm. Antiq. (1815), 358. Reddendo … et unam Wedhenne.

1371.  Close Roll, m. 4 dorso, Tercia pars gallinarum illarum que erunt leuate infra dominium de Groby que vocantur le Wodehennes.

c. 1520.  Dial. Creatures Moralised, lxxi. A A iij. Ornix the wodehenne espyed the eggis of a Pecocke.

1612.  Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot., 280/2. Cum silvarum gallinis lie wode-hennis.

1836–48.  B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., Clouds, IV. iv. I will not pay one groat to anyone, Who’s ass enough to misname woodhens ‘woodcocks.’

1901.  Rhys, Celtic Folklore, i. 55. The wife then flew away like a woodhen … into the lake.

  2.  Any flightless rail of the genus Ocydromus, of New Zealand and other Pacific islands: = WEKA.

1773.  Cook, Voy. South Pole, I. iv. (1777), I. 73. In the bottom of this arm or cove [of Dusky Bay] we found many ducks, wood hens, and other wild fowl.

1845, 1873.  [see WEKA].