138 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the Germans ; huhn, a fowl ; connected by Skeat with Latin 

 can-ere, to sing, from its noisy habits, or crowing). 



To further point this : In English we have such names as 

 moor-hen, water-hen, black-cock and his female the grey-hen ; 

 and we have brought this custom to New Zealand in calling 

 Oci/dronms the wood-hen. Again, in the name of one of the two 

 ships of Tasman's expedition when he discovered New Zealand 

 we get Zee-lii Jin, or sea-hen, a name of a kind of sea-bird ; we 

 have also named a large petrel cape-hen, mostly seen when a 

 vessel is rounding Cape Horn. You will observe that we 

 speak of a wood-hen or a cape-hen without consideration as to 

 whether it is male or female — the comparison is simply 

 between these birds and the domestic fowl of our childhood's 

 knowledge. Notice, also, our term for the stormy petrel, one 

 of the smallest (perhaps the smallest) of the birds of the ocean 

 — " Mother Carey's cJiickeus.' 1 These little black-and-white 

 birds are most persistent in following in the wake of sailing- 

 vessels. 



Here are several other German words, or names of wild 

 fowl, which are compounds of the term huhn, the neuter 

 form, of hahn, the masculine form, and of henne, the feminine 

 form, of Gallus domesticus, our barn-yard fowl, which are 

 extremely suggestive of the question as to whether these 

 people owned the tame form of Gallus bankiva or whether 

 the bird at some later time became known as the cock and 

 hen par excellence, as the king and queen of all birds. Ger- 

 man au and auer, a plain or meadow ; auer-weit, extended as 

 a plain, weit in composition meaning far or wide ; auer-icild, 

 the grouse, and so equal to moorland game; auer -hahn (male) 

 and auer-henne (female) in my dictionary is given as both 

 grouse and woodcock, which must be an error, for wald- 

 schnepfe, or wood-snipe, is evidently the woodcock. A second 

 meaning given is "the grouse," but a scientific correspondent 

 once wrote me that the capercailzie, or cock of the woods, was 

 ur-hahn, now written auer-hahn, the former name being latin- 

 ized in its generic title as Uro-gallus, the meaning being "the 

 original cock, or cock of yore," as if in contradistinction to Gal- 

 lus domesticus. The German ur in compound words = primi- 

 tive, primeval, original; ur-aim, great-grandfather; therefore 

 ur-huhn would be the first or original, or perhaps, rather, the 

 fowl of that country to which the immigrants came. I would 

 rather accept the form auer-hahn, or moorland cock, but was 

 it not a bird of the forests ? The name capercailzie is said to 

 come through Gaelic capull-coille, great cock of the woods 

 (literally, horse of the wood, from Gaelic capull, a horse, 

 co Me, colli, a wood). 



Also in German we have tvild-huhn, the ptarmigan, wild or 

 game fowl ; reb-huhn, the vine fowl, or partridge ; birk-hahn t 



