1. A name for a frog.
1825. Houlston, Tracts, I. No. 28. 4. The Frenchman’s soupe-maigre and fricasseed yellow-bellies.
18[?]. Nursery Rhyme. Yellow-belly, yellow-belly, come and have a swim.
b. A native of the fens (in humorous allusion to a frog).
1796. Grose’s Dict. Vulgar T. (ed. 3). Yellow Belly, a native of the Fens of Lincolnshire: an allusion to the eels caught there.
1846. J. Keegan, Leg. & Poems (1907), 362. I would rather dig my daughter’s grave … than see her tied to Lanty Wolfe, or any other yellow belly of the County Wexford.
1847. Halliwell, Yellow-belly, a person born in the fens of Lincolnshire. Linc.
2. A kind of tortoise, or the tortoiseshell obtained from it.
1843. Holtzapffel, Turning, I. 127, note. The Yellow Belly, which plates are very thin and yellow.
1905. Times, 15 Sept., 11/9. Tortoiseshell,… yellowbelly about 5s. dearer.
3. (See quots.)
1850. Mayne Reid, Rifle Rangers, I. ii. 12. I’ve a mighty puncheon, as the Frenchmen say, to hev a crack at them yeller-bellies. Footn. Yellow bellies—a name given by Western hunters and soldiers of the U.S.A. to the Mexicans.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Yellow-belly, a name given … occasionally to half-castes, &c.
4. Name for various fishes having the under parts yellow (see quots.).
1890. Science, 28 Feb., 141/2. A sole (Peltorhamphus novæ-zealandiæ) and a sole-like flounder (Rhombosolea leporina), commonly known as ‘yellow-belly,’ are also frequently caught.
1896. Jordan & Evermann, Fishes N. Amer., 1001. Lepomis Auritus.… Yellow Belly; Redbreast Bream.
1898. Morris, Austral Eng., Yellow-belly. In New South Wales, the name is given to a fresh-water fish, Ctenolates auratus; called also Golden-Perch…. In Dunedin especially, and New Zealand generally, it is a large flounder, also called Lemon-Sole [Ammotretis guntheri].
1899. Cumbld. Gloss., Yalla belly, a young salmon-trout returning from the sea.
