Arnold Hilary Meiklejohn

“ Latin crepare. The word has absolutely nothing to do with ravenous, &c, which is akin to rapine.
Rook—in Anglo-Saxon, hróc, "a croaker"—is imitative.
Lark is a contraction of lavrock or laverock; Anglo-Saxon, láwerce. In Icelandic there is a word lae-wirki, "a worker of guile," and it has been suggested that lâwerce is another form of this. Should this be correct, it would appear that the Lark must for some reason have been a bird of ill-omen to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
Owl is imitative, and connected with Howl, which appears in "howlet."
Vulture = the tearer (Latin, vellere) . ”

“ Smew, and similarly smee and smeath, is probably imitative of the bird's "mewing" cry. The suggestion that the word is a corruption of "ice-mew" is untenable.
Capercaillie = Gaelic capull-coille, "great cock (or horse) of the wood." The word capull has probably some connection with Latin caballus.
Grouse, curiously enough, has been falsely formed on the analogy of mouse. The original spelling is grice, from an Old French word griesche, grey, thus giving the meaning of "the grey bird." ”

“ It is interesting to note how many names are imitative of birds' cries, as in pipit, shrike, twite, crow, owl, crake, &c, and more especially in cuckoo, hoopoe, and kittiwake. The origin of some of the names appears to be quite unknown, e. g. ”