Ornith. Obs. [f. ARSE sb. + FOOT; on account of its feet being placed so far back.] A bird; identified by Willoughby with the Great and Little Dabchick, species of the Grebe; by Goldsmith with the Penguin.
1598. Florio, Giuero … a bird called a diuer, a didapper, or arsefoote.
1678. Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., 339. The Greater Loon or Arsfoot, Colymbus major. Ibid., 340. The Didapper, or Dipper, or Dobchick, or small Doucker, Loon, or Arsfoot: Colymbus sive Podicipes minor.
1774. Goldsmith, Nat. Hist. (1862), II. VII. vii. 217. Our sailors … give these birds [penguins] the very homely, but expressive, name of arse-feet.
