The NED has an article as follows-

"Irot, obs. a. I. birot (Cotg.), cf. biddock]

1611 Cotgrave :

'Pirot, the pirot or hag fish; a kind of long shell fish.'

1686 Plot, Staffordsh., 250:

"A sort of solenes (which the

Venetians calt

cape longe and the English pirot)

• a kind of shell fish deep bedded

in a solid rock."

The eventual source of both the texts quoted appears to be

Rondelet's Historia Piscium-

1558 L. Joubert, transi, Rondelet, Hist. des poiss., ii., 31: "Avios. aoliv, dóvag, örus, dáxtoios sont mots divers pour une mesme chose ci pourtraite, qu'on nomme en France couteaux, en Italie cape longe, en Anglois pirot."

Everyone knows the great influence exercised by Rondelet's book on later writers, and already in 1562 in Du Pinet's translation of Pliny's Historia Naturalis (ed. 1581, ii., 549) we find couteaux masles glossed in the margin by "en Italien cape longe, en Anglois pirot."

Now two questions may be asked. The NED derives the English pirot from French pirot; but where outside Cotgrave is French pirot to be found? It is nowhere noted as the name of any mollusc.

In any case I propose to neglect it. On the other hand, is there anything real behind the pirot given as English by Rondelet?

I think it will be agreed there must be.

I have elsewhere shown

how numerous are the misprints made in the transcription of foreign names of fishes, etc., in the De Piscibus Marinis and Joubert's translation has sometimes added to the number. It may be that behind Rondelet's pirot lies obscured a form without r and nearer to piddock. In that case the history of piddock would be taken back 300 years before its first attestation in the NED.