BENGALI— BERNA CLE 



his toll, and then a pause for a minute, then another toll, and then 

 a pause again, and then a toll, and again a pause. Then he is silent 

 for six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on." In 

 Ne^y Zealand the name is given to the Anthonm melanura of the 

 Family MeU]j]iagklai (Honey-sucker), whose melody struck the 

 companions of Cook, when on his second voyage the ship was 

 lying in Queen Charlotte's Sound, as being "like small bells most 

 exquisitely tuned " — a bird which owing to the destruction of the 

 forests no longer exists in most parts of that country, and will 

 speedily become extinct. In Australia, according to Gould, two 

 species of birds — one of them, Manorhina vielanophrys, belonging to 

 a different genus of the Family last-named, and the other, Oreoxa 

 cristata, possibly to the Laniidee (Shrike) — are called by the same 

 name for the same reason. 



BENGALI, the dealers' name for the beautiful little African 

 bird, Fringilla bengalus of Linnaeus, and some of its allies, belonging 

 to the Ploceidx (Weaver-bird), and referred by later AVTiters to 

 the genus Estrilda, Pytelia or Urxgnatkus. The name originated 

 with Brisson (Ornithol. iii. p. 203), who believed these birds came 

 from Bengal. 



BERGHAAN (Mountain-cock) the name given to some of the 

 larger Eagles, and especially to the beautiful Helotarsus ecaudatus 

 (sometimes known as the " Bateleur "), by the Dutch colonists in 

 South Africa, and often adopted by English residents (Layard, 

 B. S. Africa, pp. 11, 18). 



BERNACLE, apparently the right way of spelling the word 

 often written, in accordance with its pronunciation, "Barnacle" or 

 "Barnicle." Its derivation is as puzzling to the etymologist as is 

 to the ornithologist the discovery of the breeding-grounds of the 

 bird it denominates. Dr. Murray, under the word " Barnacle " in 

 the New English Dictionary, gives as the oldest known English form 

 the Bernekke (Latinized Bernaca) of Giraldus Cambrensis about 



tone, has a clear metallic ring, though the bird, as may be seen by the figure, has 

 no caruncle, shews that this feature is not likely to be connected with the power 

 of producing the peculiar sound. A fourth species, C. variegatus, inhabits 



Chasmoehynchus nudicollis. (After Swainsou.) 



Trinidad and the neighbouring part of South America. Its loud note is likened 

 by Leotaud {Ois. Trinidad, p. 260) to tlie sound of a cracked bell. 



