46 CHECK LIST OF NOBTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



189. Hesperophona vespertina (Coop.) Bp. b 303. c 136. r 165. 



Evening Grosbeak. 



190. Pinicola enucleator (L.) V. b 304. c 137. R ice. 



Pine Grosbeak. 



191. Pyrrhula cassini (Bd.) Tristr. B — . c 138. R 167. (!A.) 



Cassin's Bullfinch. 



192. Passer domesticus (L.) Koch, b — . c 187. R — . [imp. and Nat.] 



Pliilip Sparrow. 



with ihe diseresis over the /, and consequently making seven syllables. So long a word 

 is therefore preferably shortened by omitting the connecting vowel o; wliich, with the 

 usual change of Gr. ef to long i in Latin, gives the above si^elling and ijronunciation. 

 The full number of letters in the compound is excubitorieides. 



189. Hes-per-6-ph6'-na ves-per-ti'-na. Gr. eo-Trt'po, Hesperus, the west, the place of sunset 



{x<^po; region, being understood); hence, the evening; and c^aji'^, the voice; (pwveoi, I 

 speak; ^aw, ^rj^ui, related to (paivoi, &c. — Lat. Vespertinus, pertaining to the evening, 

 Vesperus being the same as Hesperus. — The genus-name is universally written Hesperi- 

 phona, as Bonaparte originally spelled it, but the above is certainly correct, as it is pure 

 Greek for what Vespen'sona would be the Latin of. The pleonastic name signalizes a 

 belief, formerly entertained, that the bird sings chiefly at evening. — Grosbeak or grossbeak 

 is corrupted from the Fr. grosbec, thick-bill. 



190. Pi-ni'-c6-la e-nu-cle-a'-tor. Lat. pimis, a pine, and incola, an inhabitant, from colo, I 



cultivate ; formed like many other words in -cola, as snxicola, agricola, &c. — Lat. enucleator, 

 one who " shells out," or enucleates ; from enucleo, I take out the kernel ; nucleus, the 

 nucleus or kernel, this from nux, a nut. The two words indicate the characteristic 

 liabitat and habit of tlie bird. 



191. Pyr'-rhii-la cas'-sin-I. Lat. pijrrhda, a bullfinch; a diminutive of Pyrrlws, a proper 



name ; Gr. nvppos, fiery-red, from irvp, fire ; in allusion to the bright color of the bird. — 

 To John Cassin. 



It is still uncertain what relation this bird may best be considered to bear to the Old 

 World form P. coccinea, as no Alaskan specimens, since the type, have been forthcoming. 

 We give it as it stands in the body of the orig. ed. of the Check List. 



Note. — Another species of this genus has lately been reported from Greenland by 

 Kumlein (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 15, p. 74; 1879) ; but the case remains very dubious. 



192. Pas'-sgr dom-es'-ti-cus. Many interesting words arc grouped about this ubiquitous bird, 



which has been named in nearly or quite all civilized languages ; some of them may be 

 here noticed. — 1. Passer domesticus, literally "house sparrow," is itself a very old Latin 

 biblionym, though used for less than a century as a technical term. Passer is good 

 Latin for sparrow, and particularly for this very species, which is said to have been 

 noted, if not named, for its salacity ; but the etymology of this word is unknown to us, 

 as it also appears to be to the authors of several lexicons; one says j)asser ior padser, 

 from pnndo, I spread. Passer seems to have become of general signification, almost as 

 broad as English " bird " or " fowl." The Ital. is passera, passere, passara, and this lan- 

 guage also had passer domesticus in passara cazarenga. The word passes directly into the 

 Yr. passer at, passer eau, and to the Eng. technical adjective passerine, sparrow-like; while 

 the Span, paxaro (as if pacsaro) ov pajaro is apparently the same. — 2. The Gr. name 

 for this species was aTpovdSs, in Aristotle ; which in modern teclmic has become, in the 

 form strulhio, the name of the ostrich, Struthio camelus L., and has given our Eng. adjec- 

 tive struthious, ostrich-like. The actual application to the ostrich, however, dates back to 

 Aristotle, whose a-TpovOds 6 eV Ai/Syrj, or Libyan fowl, was the ostrich — like the Lat. 

 passer marinus, i. (]., the bird brought from over tlie sea. — 3. The Gr. word irvpyiTris, from 

 TTvpyos, a tower, and meaning a dweller in the tower, has been of late years used to some 



