Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a handkerchief; a bird’s eye pattern; also as adj., having a bird’s eye pattern.

1665		Pepys Diary 14 May n.p.: To church, it being Whit-Sunday; my wife very fine in a new yellow bird’s-eye hood, as the fashion is now.
1775		‘The Potato Man’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 54: With a blue bird’s eye about my squeeg.
c.1800		‘Tom the Drover’ No. 30 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: With a blue birds eye round his Squeeze, and his garters below his knees.
1812		Egan Boxiana I 167: The blue silk bird’s-eye graced the appearance of the backers of the Chicken.
1823		N.-Y. Eve. Post 10 July 2/4: The coloured fogles, the blue bird’s-eye for Spring, and a yellowman for Neate, were then interwoven together on one of the P. C. stakes.
1827		W. Clarke Every Night Book 38: Yea! by the blue bird’s eye of Belcher, these are the characters of the pugilistic young poet.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 46: The yellow fogle was soon hoisted over the fallen blue bird’s eye out of the window.
1833		‘My Dimber Mot’ in Regular Thing, And No Mistake 67: And should we meet a Lushington, / He’s spoken with for you, / From ticker, lil, or bright ribbon, / To fadge – or bird’s eye, blue.
1841		Thackeray Professor (1853) 166: He wore [...] a blue or bird’s eye neckerchief.
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 Feb. 2/7: A P.R. bird’s eye blue carelessly slung around his gullet.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 266: He dressed the sportsman, too, most assiduously, bird’s-eye cravats, step-collared striped vests.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 192: He wore a blue bird’s-eye handkerchief round his neck.
1861		Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 June 2/3: Jack came ashore, attired in a new ‘bird’s eye round his squeeze," and a magnificent ‘yeller wescut’.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 292: Flash Jack, with his great throat encircled by a bird’s-eye ‘Kingsman’ of irresistable pattern.
1883		Daily Tel. 7 Aug. 6/2: His neckerchief was of the same hue [silver grey], with a light crimson bird’s-eye [F&H].
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 49: A tall man appeared, with [...] a bird’s eye tie, a white clobber, a black waistcoat, a light-coloured overcoat and a tall white hat.
1911		G.R. Sims Off the Track in London 134: There you see everywhere little groups of men, each with a bird in a small cage, tied up in a blue bird’s-eye pocket-handkerchief.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 2: Bendigo’s mother pulled open a creaking drawer [...] and drew out a spotted blue neckerchief of the pattern known as the blue birdseye [...] There’ll be a young man go to the fair wi’ a bonny new birdseye round his neck […]. [Ibid.] 3: But gie me the true blue fogle wi’ the white birdseye as worn by Tom Cribb.