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Examples
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She said there was a bird which her brother told her was a barley-bird (_Motacilla flava_), which was continually flying against her windows, and as birds were not in the habit of doing so generally, she thought something serious was portended by it.
Essays in Natural History and Agriculture Thomas Garnett 1838
hernesheir commented on the word barley-bird
Walter Rye's (1895) A Glossary of Words Used in East Anglia defines the term thusly: "The nightingale, which comes to us in the season of sowing barley".
May 7, 2011