“To brawle with you about her cocke, For well I heard Tyb say, The cocke was roasted in your house, To breakfast yesterday.” Tyb was Gammer Gurton’s “mayde.” In the same play the cat is “Gib.” The maid says of Gammer while stitching with her needle,— “Gyb, our cat, in the milke-pan, She spied over head and ears.” The Kitcat Club took its name from one Christopher Cat, who kept an eating-house in London, where the club members met. The pet name of Christopher was Kit (whence our Kitts, and Kitsons, and the island of St. Kitts, _i.e._ St. Christopher): a conjunction of the Christian and surname formed the term. I may here add that Bishop Ken represents the Norman word for the dog, an old form being Eborard le Ken, or Thomas le Chene. We still employ the term _Kennel_, which is from the same root. This interchange of civilities has not been so largely cultivated between mankind and the finny tribe—at least, not in England. Boys talk, ’tis true, of a Jack-sharp, and fishermen of a Jack-pike or a John Dory; but there we end our distribution of nominal courtesies. But the denizens of our streams and becks and estuaries, whether in fresh water or salt, have turned the tables on us with a vengeance. No doubt, as the penalty of possessing certain peculiarities in gait, or habit, or complexion, many of our forefathers got nicknamed _Grayling_, _Tench_, _Pike_, _Herring_, _Pilchard_, or _Sturgeon_. _Whale_ would be a nickname for a man of huge bulk. Thomas _Spratt_ was Bishop of Rochester in 1688. We are all familiar with _Chubb_, on account of his patent locks. A Mr. _Codde_ married a Miss Salt, and their first child bore the name of Salt Codde. {144a} This is not more remarkable than “Preserved Fish,” which figured for some years in the New York Directory, and may be there now for what I know to the contrary. A Mrs. _Salmon_ is said to have presented her husband with three children at one birth, and to commemorate such an auspicious event, he had them christened by the names of Pickled, Potted, and Fresh. I do not vouch for the truth of this story! {144b} I may observe here that it is somewhat remarkable that quaint Isaac Walton, the great master, rather than “disciple of the rod,” wrote the life of the “judicious Hooker.” Most anglers are disposed to think that Walton himself was the most “judicious hook-er” that England has ever seen. At least, his success with the fish-basket was so great, and his meditations while occupied with his favourite pastime were so wise, that cynical Samuel Johnson could not say of _his_ fishing rod, that there was a worm at one end and a fool at the other.