_Havior_.--Without offering an opinion as to the relative probability
of the etymology of this word, offered by your various correspondents
(No. 17. p. 269.), I think it right that the use of the word in
Scotland should not be overlooked.
In Jamieson's admirable _Dictionary_, the following varieties of
spelling and meaning (all evidently of the same word) occur:--
"_Aver_ or _Aiver_, a horse used for labour; commonly an old
horse; as in Burns--
"'Yet aft a ragged cowte's been kenn'd To mak a noble
_aiver_.'
"'This man wyl not obey.... Nochtheles I sall gar hym draw lik
an _avir_ in ane cart'--_Bellend. Chron._
"'_Aiver_, a he-goat after he has been gelded: till then he is
denominated a _buck_.
"_Haiver_, _haivrel_, _haverel_, a gelded goat (East Lothian,
Lanarkshire, Sotherland).
"_Hebrun_, _heburn_, are also synonymes.
"_Averie_, live-stock, as including horses, cattle, &c.
"'Calculation of what money, &c. will sustain their Majesties'
house and _averie_'--_Keith's Hist._
"'_Averia_, _averii_, 'equi, boves, jumenta, oves, ceteraque
animalia quæ agriculturæ inserviunt.'"--Ducange.
Skene traces this word to the low Latin, _averia_, "quhilk signifies
ane beast." According to Spelman, the Northumbrians call a horse
_aver_ or _afer_.
See much more learned disquisition on the origin of these evidently
congenerous words under the term _Arage_, in Jamieson.