ground-bird
† 1. Applied to a particular swan out of a ‘game’, or perh. more than one, possibly as being the due of the owner of the land. Obs.
| 1560 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 285 For uppyng the ground byrde in portemeade. 1562 Ibid. 304 Item, payed for a grounde byrd..xijd. 1570 Ibid. 330 Payed for two growne burds. 1887 Standard 1 Aug. 5/2 The owner of the soil claimed one cygnet as ‘the ground bird’. |
2. A general name for any columbine, gallinaceous, grallatorial, or struthious bird.
| 1840 Blyth Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. (1849) 251 The various groups of Ground-birds (as the vast majority of the foregoing extensive series may be appropriately denominated) fall into six principal divisions. |
3. U.S. The grass-finch or ground-sparrow.
| 1856 Bryant Poems, Rivulet iii, And the brown ground⁓bird, in thy glen Still chirps as merrily as then. |