450 Mr. H. T. Wharton on, the Orthography 



the original author should still be retained for the name, and 

 not that of the person who makes the correction/^ 



I wish therefore to call attention to certain names of birds 

 of which I do not think the orthography has yet obtained 

 general recognition, however unanimous authorities may be 

 in the actual spelling of the words. 



In the year 1786 Blasius Merrem published his ' Avium 

 rariorum et minus cognitarum icones et descriptiones collectse 

 e germanicis latinae factse/ and under his account of his Pene- 

 lope jacupema, of which he quotes " Aiector brasilianus , Klein, 

 Hist. Av. pag. 112," as a synonym, he proposes in the follow- 

 ing words a subdivision of this genus Alector : — 



'' Quod genus, cum multas sane species comprehendat, in 

 plures phalanges dividendum videtur, quarum primam cum 

 Linnseo atque Brissonio Cracem, cam, ad quam nostra pertinet 

 species, Penelopen, tertiam, ad quam Phasianus Motmot et 

 similes ei referendse sunt aves, Ortalida appello." (Fasc. ii. 

 p. 40.) 



How any one can have read this passage and not seen 

 that "Ortalida" was the accusative case governed by "apj 

 pello " is indeed a marvel ; but the fact remains that, to this 

 day, " Ortalida " is constantly used as the name of a genus, 

 under which Messrs. Sclater and Salvin range no less than 

 eighteen species in their 'Nomenclator Avium Neotropi- 

 calium^ (1873), p. 136. It is true that the accurate Gloger, 

 in his ' Gemeinniitz. Hand- u. Hilfsbuch der Naturgeschichte ' 

 (Breslau, 1842), p. 373, uses the name " Ortdlis" as if no 

 one could have ever thought of any other form for the nomi- 

 native case. 



Whoever first adopted Merrem's name, evidently copied it 

 hastily from the Latin ; and his oversight seems never yet to 

 have been seriously noticed. But there is no doubt that 

 Merrem had in mind the classical Greek word opraXt?, which 

 mainly corresponds to the Latin pullus and to our " chicken," 

 a Boeotian word (probably akin to opvif) which, say Liddell 

 and Scott (1869), passed into general poetic use. 



Hence it is clear that, whenever the name is used, the 



