sb. (a.) A name (or epithet = yellow-tailed) for various animals with yellow tails or yellow coloration on the tail.

1

  † 1.  A kind of earthworm: cf. GILT-TAIL. Obs.

2

1608.  Topsell, Serpents, 307. Othersome againe are yellow onely about the tayle: Whereuppon they haue purchased the name of Yellow-tayles.

3

1688.  Holme, Armoury, II. 210/2. The Ascarides, or lesser Earth-worm,… Some are yellow, called Yellow-Tails, or Golden Tails.

4

  2.  Name for various fishes, chiefly of N. America, Australia, and New Zealand, as various species of Seriola, Caranx, and Latris, and many others.

5

1709.  Dampier’s Voy., III. II. 143. The Sea and Rivers [New Guinea] have plenty of Fish;… we catch’d but few, and these were Cavallies, Yellow-tails and Whip-rays.

6

1796.  Nemnich, Polygl.-Lex., 944. Yellow tail, (a) Perca punctata. (b) Scomber.

7

1838.  Encycl. Metrop. (1845), XXIV. 370/2. S[ciæna] Xanthurus;… Yellow-tailed Smooth-mouth…. Found on the Carolina coast, where it is called the Yellow-tail.

8

1847.  J. C. Ross, Voy. Antarctic Reg., II. 117. A kind of mackarel, called yellow tail, and sometimes cavallo.

9

1867.  Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Yellow-tail, a well-known tropical fish often in company with whip-rays; it is about 4 feet long, with a great head, large eyes, and many fins. Leiostomas.

10

1875.  Melliss, St. Helena, 106. S[eriola] lalandii…. The Yellow Tail of St. Helena is obtained also in the Atlantic, at Japan and Australia.

11

1888.  Rep. U.S. Comm. Fish (1892), XVI. 45. The yellow-tail rockfish (S[ebastichthys] flavidus).

12

1888.  Goode, Amer. Fishes, 99. The ‘Sailor’s Choice’ [Lagodon rhomboides] … bears several other names,… being known … in the Indian River region as the … ‘Scup,’ and ‘Yellow-tail.’ Ibid., 131. The Yellow Tail, Bairdiella chrysura, known as ‘Silver Perch’ on the coast of New Jersey. Ibid., 386. In North Carolina … the names ‘Yellow-tail’ and ‘Yellow-tail Shad’ [for the Menhaden] are occasionally heard.

13

1897.  Beatrice Harraden, in Blackw. Mag., Feb., 179. The yellow-tail is rather like a solid beefsteak of coarse fibre.

14

1898.  Morris, Austral Eng.

15

  3.  (Also yellow-tail warbler.) The female or young male of the American Redstart.

16

1775.  Dalrymple, in Phil. Trans. (1779), LXVIII. 410. Many yellow tails.

17

1785.  Pennant, Arct. Zool., II. 406. Yellow-tail Warbler. With an ash-colored crown:… Taken … off Hispaniola, at sea.

18

  4.  Collectors’ name for a species of moth, also called gold-tail (see GOLD1 10).

19

1749.  B. Wilkes, Eng. Moths, etc. 28. The Yellow-tail Moth … may be found sticking against the Barks of the Trees in Parks.

20

1815.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol., ii. (1818), I. 30. The yellow-tail moth (Bombyx chrysorhœa, F.).

21