1. A name given to various black-headed birds; e.g., a kind of white pigeon with a black head, the Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus), etc.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1088. Meal-worms … seem to be bred to catch black-heads and Nightingales.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, III. 512. The Black-Head is a white Pidgeon with a black Head.
1806. P. Neill, Tour Orkney & Shetland, 201.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., xx. (1855), 174. What obliging birds the blackheads are!
2. Angling. A variety of the Marsh-worm.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, I. V. ii. § 3. A variety of this [the marsh] worm … is called in Scotland The Black head.
3. pl. Name for the Reed Mace (Typha latifolia).
