Chap, v.] DERIVATIONS OF NAMES OF BIRDS. I I I 



the sea, but split up into numerous channels leading down to 

 a number of easy tracks through the rocks. A little way in 

 there was a clear open track six feet wide, and in places as 

 much as eight or ten feet in width. 



On each side narrow alleys led at nearly right angles to the 

 rows of nests with which the whole space on either side of the 

 main street was taken up. 



Amongst the penguins here were numerous nests of the 

 yellow-billed Albatross {Diomedea cuhninata), called by the 

 Tristan people " Mollymauk," variously spelt in books, Molly 

 Hawk, Mollymoy, Mollymoc, Mallymoke. It is, as are most 

 of the sealers' names in the South, a name originally given to 

 one of the Arctic birds, the Fulmar, and then transferred to 

 the Antarctic from some supposed or real resemblance. 



In the same manner the name given by northern whalers to 

 the Little Auk is given in the South to the Diving Petrel of 

 Kerguelen's Land. So also the term "clap match" given to 

 the female southern fur seals by the sealers is the name 

 originally given by the Dutch to the hooded seal or " bladder- 

 nose " of Greenland {Cysiocephahts), and is a corruption of the 

 word " Klapmuts," a bonnet, "the seal with a bonnet." It is 

 curious that in this case the term should have been thus 

 transferred to so very different a seal, which has nothing 

 resembling a hood, but the word is so peculiar that there can 

 be no doubt about its origin. 



Various similar corruptions are in use as terms for southern 

 animals. The name Albatross itself is the Spanish word 

 "alcatraz," a "gannet." The Spanish no doubt called the 

 albatrosses they met with " gannets," their familiar sea bird, 

 just as common sailors will call every sea bird a gull, and a 

 foreigner's corruption of the word became adopted as a special 

 name for the bird. 



The name Penguin is another instance in point. The word 

 was not coined, as often supposed, by the early Dutch navi- 

 gators, from the Latin word " pinguis," but is, as has been 

 shown by M. Roulin and others, a Breton or Welsh word, 

 "pen gwen, or gwyn," "white head," the name originally 

 given to European sea birds with white heads, probably to the 

 Puffin {Alormon fratercula). The name Pingouin is applied in 

 modern French to the Great and Little Auk. In early voyages 

 the name is applied to various exotic sea birds. In early 

 Dutch travels the true meaning of the word is given, and it is 

 stated to be English.* 



* Sy word en Pinguijns ghenaemt niet van wegen haer vettigheyd, so 

 de schryver van dit Journael verkeerdelijck meent, maer om dat sy witte 

 hoofden hebben, want dat betekent Pinguijns in't Engelsch, gelijck in 



