rainbirdn.

1544 W. Turner Avium Præcipuarum sig. H4 (margin) A rayn birde.

1555 C. Gesner Historiæ Animalium III. 675 Picus, Anglis a specht, uel a Vuodpecker, uel raynbyrde.

1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 214 The Rainbird, Woodpeck or Hickway, called Picus Martius.

1843 W. Yarrell Hist. Brit. Birds II. 136 The Green Woodpecker..[is] said to be vociferous when rain is impending, hence their name of Rain-bird.

1885 C. Swainson Provinc. Names Brit. Birds 100 Green Woodpecker... The constant iteration of its cry before rain (which brings out the insects on which it feeds) gives it the names Rain bird, [etc.].

1913 H. K. Swann Dict. Names Brit. Birds 187 Rain-bird, Rain-fowl, or Rain-pye: The Green Woodpecker... It is still a country belief that when the cry of this bird is much heard rain will follow.

1979 Country Life 20 Sept. 829/3 Now I hardly ever hear the rainbird, as the green woodpecker is called.

1999 Guardian 13 May i. 18/7 In Sussex, the green woodpecker is known as the rain-bird, while in Northumberland it is the rain-fowl.

1725 H. Sloane Voy. Islands II. 313 It makes a Noise generally before Rain, whence it had its Name of Rain Bird.

1756 P. Browne Civil & Nat. Hist. Jamaica ii. iii. 467 The Rain-Bird..is seldom seen; but when it flies it takes a thousand turns in its flight.

1847 P. H. Gosse & R. Hill Birds of Jamaica 277 Old Man.—Rainbird... The appellation of Rainbird is indiscriminately applied to both this and the preceding.

1888 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 25 163 [In the vicinity of Philadelphia] the cry of the ‘rainbird’ or cuckoo presages rain.

1898 E. E. Morris Austral Eng. (at cited word) The rain-bird of Queensland and the interior is the great Cuckoo or Channel-bill.

1906 East London Daily Dispatch (S. Afr.) 4 Aug. 4 Of all the notes to be heard during a day at the Nahoon, I fancy those of the rain-bird (one of our resident cuckoos) are the most strange.

1949 B. O'Reilly Green Mountains 249 Cuckoos are our most renowned harbingers of rain, and any species of the large family may be known in some corner or other of Australia by the vernacular of ‘rain bird’ or ‘storm bird’.

1960 J. Bond Birds W. Indies (ed. 3) 115 Mangrove Cuckoo Coccyzus minor. Local names: Rain Bird; Rain Crow.

1990 Weekend Post (Port Elizabeth) 19 Jan. (Leisure) 1 All canoeists are familiar with the distinctive and rather mournful cry of the large brown rain bird (Burchell's coucal).

1817 J. F. Stephens Shaw's Gen. Zool. X. i. 149 This species [sc. the Carolina Goatsucker] has received the name of rain bird in America, from the circumstance of its only making its appearance in the evening, or during rainy weather.

1860 G. Bennett Gatherings of Naturalist in Austral. xiv. 283 The Australian Shrike or Butcher-bird, also called Rain-bird by the colonists (Vanga destructor).

1892 T. Kelly Narr. Journey Upper Waitara Valley 7 In the early morning the notes of solitary tuis are heard, and later on the cheerful warble of the rerorero (the rain bird).

1902 Emu 2 72 Psophodes nigrogularis (Black-throated Coachwhip-Bird)..is locally known as the ‘Rain-Bird’ by reason of the fact that immediately preceding rain it..utters a series of beautiful, clear, liquid, penetrating notes.

1904 F. W. Hutton & J. Drummond Animals N.Z. 249 It [sc. the mottled petrel] is known as the Rain Bird in many places, as it is often heard at night calling as it flies out to sea; and in New Zealand rain often falls in the night.

1950 Caribbean Q. 2 iii. 42 I had often heard them [sc. purple martins] singing on the wing, and in the rain (like some other birds these too are known as Rain Birds).

1962 Times 15 Sept. 10/3 The curlew..are the inshore fisherman's ‘rain birds’, perhaps because they move about most in unsettled or changeable weather.

1999 Guardian 13 May i. 18/8 Another well-known ‘rain bird’ is the red-throated diver, known in Shetland as the rain goose, because it is supposed to call more before rain.