140 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



French dindon, a turkey-cock ; dincle, a turkey-hen ; and 

 dmdonneau, a young turkey. German meer-schiocin-chen (lite- 

 rally, " sea-pig-small ") is a guinea-pig — probably small pig 

 from over the sea. But a guinea-fowl is called perl-huhu, 

 pearl fowl, most likely from the circular wmite spots on the 

 feathers. Meer-schwein is the porpoise, the English name of 

 which is said to be from Latin porc-us, a pig, and piscis, a fish. 

 Another example of the application of the terms cock and hen 

 is seen in English peacock, peahen, pea-fowl; German, pfau 

 (male) , pfau-henne (female: note the suffix henne as approxi- 

 mate to English hen), pfauge-flugel (pea-fowl); French, paon 

 (male), paonne (female), paon-sauvage-des- Pyrenees (the ruff 

 and reeve mentioned above : why called paon I do not under- 

 stand, perhaps from spreading ruff feathers on the neck of the 

 male bird, but note its fighting qualities in sativage) ; Latin 

 pavo ; Greek, taos and taon (a peacock). Skeat connects with 

 Tamil tokei togei, a peacock ; this might well be called " the bird 

 of India," but is not so named. Some years ago, when I was 

 called upon to assist in the amusement of some children on a 

 wet day, the entertainment consisted of each person present 

 taking the name or role of some animal or bird. One small 

 girl elected to be a peacock, and as the narrator of the story 

 to the play arrived at the word "peacock" the child, in a 

 peculiar tone of voice, cried out pa-oo, making the two syl- 

 lables in a somewhat different tone. At once I saw the simi- 

 larity in this perfect imitation to the call of the bird to Latin 

 pavo, and am satisfied that the voice of the bird originates its 

 own name. 



French coq, a cock, would seem connected with the Greek 

 kokkv£, a cuckoo, as seen in kokkv(o, to crow like a cock, to call 

 as the cuckoo. As an ally Skeat has cockatoo, a kind of parrot, 

 from Malay kaka-tua. This latter is evidently seen in the 

 Maori kaka (the Nestor meridionalis , a species of parrot), and 

 in kaka-riki, a parrakeet (literally, a small kaka). From the 

 plumage of this bird comes the standard for the colour 

 green; also kaka-riki, green colour; kaka-po, the night parrot, 

 from po, night. The name for Gallus domesticus among the 

 Polynesians is moa, but when Captain Cook brought the fowl 

 to New 7 Zealand the name moa was then used to denote differ- 

 ent varieties of Dinornis ; so seemingly the Maori has invented 

 two different original words founded on the call of the bird. 

 The word lien Skeat connects with Latin can-ere, to sing, 

 Anglo-Saxon, hana, a cock (literally, the singer) — as I have 

 already indicated. 



Whatever may be the origin of the words cock and hen, it 

 seems to me from the above study that before man took the 

 thought to distinguish between the sexes of birds and animals 

 he had already domesticated the Gallus bankiva, now found 



