248 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



four American committees, viz., "Other things being equal, 

 it is recommended that mononyms be preferred to polyonyms." 

 Calcar avis is a polyonym ; calcar is a mononym. 



If it be said that unguis is also a mononym, the answer is 

 that in this case " other things " would not be equal, because 

 (i) no general preference has ever been shown for it or for any 

 term of which it is a constituent ; (2) there would be lost the 

 advantage of the correlation now existing between the ental 

 ridge and the fissure collocated therewith. 



§107. Two objections might be offered to the omission of 

 the qualifying genitive, avis. 



1. The original sense of the Latin r«/f«r was spin% and 

 its application to the sharp projection on the leg of the cock 

 was metaphoric. This can hardly be entertained as a serious 

 objection ; indeed, although the modern spur has a toothed 

 wheel or rowel, the primitive instrument was little more than a 

 spike; hence the qualifying genitive is needless. 



2. Calcar has also been applied occasionally to two other 

 parts, viz., the calcaneum (os calcis) and the styloid process of 

 the temporal bone. But, {a) neither of these uses is sanctioned 

 by the German committee, and {U) even if they were, the con- 

 text would infallibly avert misapprehension (§§23, 6']y, indeed, 

 the German committee apply clivtis without qualification to fea- 

 tures of two adjacent cranial bones, the occipital and sphe- 

 noidal. 



§108. Finally, the sufficiency of the mononymic substan- 

 tive, calcar, is practically conceded by all who employ the mon- 

 onymic adjective, calcarinus, in any of its Latin inflections, or 

 in any of its national paronymic forms. The simplest require- 

 ments of logic present the following dilemma : If calcarinus is 

 sufficiently distinctive, so is calcar from which it is derived. 

 But if calcar avis is essential, then the adjective should be cal- 

 cari-avianns or some such compound. See also under dura 

 (115). There seems to have been little if any hesitation on the 

 part of the German committee in adopting fissnra calcarina 

 (His, '95, 170) and no reason for the maintenance oi calcar avis 

 has yet come under my notice. 



