THE OSPREY. 



157 



THE OSPREY. 



An Uliisl rated M:i>j;a/,iiie uf Popular Oiniihtjloiiy 

 Piil)lisheil Moiiilily. 

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JUNE, IGOO. 



No. 10. 



Comments. 



SIGNIFIC.\NCP; AND ETYMOLOGY OF THp; WORD 

 MAMMALS. 



A discussion arcse a short time ag'o, respecting' 

 the relations of birds and niaiiinials to each 

 other as well as to reptiles. From the taxono- 

 mic question it tinally drifted to a linguistic 

 one, and to the origin or etymology of the word 

 mammals or mammalia. There was general 

 ignorance — or, let us rather say, misapprehen- 

 sion — respecting the word. Naturally recourse 

 was had to the dictionaries for support of con- 

 liicting v-iews, but, to our surprise, the dictiona- 

 ries — big and little, vernacttlar and foreign — en- 

 tirely failed to give the proper information. 



Equally silent on the subject were all the 

 general and special works on mammals, English 

 and foreign. Indeed, it seems to have been 

 vaguely assumed that there was something- 

 wrong or unusual about the word, and that it 

 was an imperfectly formed one. Consequently 

 it has been repeatedly attempted to replace it by 

 one of more evident derivation — mammifers. 

 As the question is one of much and general in- 



terest, the senior editor of the Osprey takes it 

 on himself to consider it here. 



The answer on first thought may seem to 

 be obvious — especially after explanation! Con- 

 siderable personal inquiry, however, has proven 

 that it has not been, nor is it easily, recognized, 

 and it is not correctly or fully given in any dic- 

 tionaries. Of course it is clear that the essen- 

 tial component is »/ai/n/ia, breast, but how does 

 the terminal element ( — al) come in? The ques- 

 tion is, then, what is the exact etymology or 

 principle of composition of the word mammalia 

 or mammals? 



In the great Century Dictionary, a deservedly 

 esteemed work, and which maj' generally be im- 

 plicitly trusted, the etymology of mammalia is 

 given as "NL. (sc. a/iii/ia/ia), neut. pi. of LL. 

 luaiiniialis (neut. sing, as a noun, i)iaiii»iale), of 

 the breast: see Diainiiial." and, under mammal, 

 we have "a. and ;/. [= OF. iuai/i)iia/=Qp. manial 

 = Pg. Diaiiial, Diammal ^ It. inammale, n.; < 

 NL. uiaiiiuiaU', a mainmal, neut. of LL«. mamnia- 

 /is. of the breast, < L,. niainma, the breast.]" 



All this is misleading, if not erroneous. The 

 name mammalia was tirst coined and used by 

 Linnjeus in 1758, and was formed directly from 

 the Latin; it had nothing to do with French, 

 Spanish, Portuguese or Italian words. The 

 concept of which the L(inna?an word is the ex- 

 pression is as remote from a popular notion as 

 could well be, and even the necessity for the 

 word (or an analogous one I can be appreciated 

 really only by the educated or, pfo tanto, the 

 scientifically educated: Buffon and Goldsmith, 

 for example, could not realize the reason for its 

 tise. 



It is noteworthy that in the Century Diction- 

 ary even the very word that might have given 

 the clue to the formation of mammal is cited and 

 yet the excellent professional etymologist was 

 not guided into the right path. With the hint 

 given to him in the plainest way, he failed to 

 see the point. Evidently, then, the etymology 

 is not as obvious as it might seem to be. 



Often, indeed, in looking over etymologies, we 

 have been impressed with the insufficiency of 

 philological learning alone for the solution of 

 knotty questions. A living knowledge of the 

 objects named is often requisite for a full under- 

 standing of the significance or aptness of the 

 names. 



It was one of the happiest inspirations of 

 LiiDiajus to segregate all the mammiferous 

 animals— the hairy quadrupeds and the ceta- 

 ceans—in a single class. No one before had ap- 

 preciated the closeness of the relations of the 



