SYLVA CRITICA CANADENSIUM. 93 
like the place called A¢vya, at Athens, stagnant water. See on V., 
2,8. Varro, L.L., V., § 43-44: ‘Olim paludibus mons (Aventinus) 
erat ab reliquis disclusus, itaque ex urbe advehebantur ratibus, quoius 
vestigia, quod ea, qua tum vehebantur, etiami nune dicitur Velabrum.’— 
‘Velabrum a vehendo. Velaturam facere etiam tune dicuntur, qui 
id mercede faciunt.’” 
There seems to be no doubt, from the above and similar passages 
(e. g., Ovid, F., VI., 505), that the Velabrum was originally a marshy 
spot. It has occurred to me that a more satisfactory derivation than 
either of those given above, would be to suppose it connected, by the 
medium of the digamma, with the Greek ioc, “a marsh ;” and if, 
as philologists suppose, the Latin vallis is of cognate origin with fos, 
this example would greatly add to the probability of the derivation 
which I propose. With regard to the termination of Velabrum, 
possibly, as in volutabrum, it is a mere suffix ; possibly, as in candela- 
brum, the termination, brum, retains the meaning of the root BHAR 
(found in ¢gpa, fero, &e.), “ bear,” with which it is generally supposed 
to be connected. In this case, Velabrum would be, “The ferry of 
the marsh ;’ and the old derivation from veho would not be so far 
wrong after all. 
15. Luscinia. This word is variously derived in the Lexica: 
(1) Zuscus and cano, “‘the bird singing at night.” 
(2) lux and cano, “the bird singing at dawn.” 
(3) Adw and cano, “the liquid songstress.” 
Of these derivations the first is commonly rejected, on the ground 
that /uscus and cano would properly signify “the one-eyed songstress ;” 
the second, because the bird does not sing merely at daybreak but 
all the night long, and frequently in the daytime too. 
With regard to the third, which has been received with more 
favour, I would object that, in almost every passage where the night- 
ingale is mentioned by the ancients, it is not the sweetness but the 
sadness of her song which appears to have impressed them. Why 
did this bird redouble her plaints during the night, when other birds 
of song were still and silent? The myth of Philomela, Procne, and 
Tereus (Ovid, Metam. VI. 424 foll.) furnished an answer to this 
question. Hverywhere the nightingale, whether called Procne, Philo- 
mela, or 470@y, is used as a symbol of ceaseless mourning. Sophocles 
speaks of her as the frantic mourner, whose unending plaint of “ Itys 
ever Itys,” best accords with the melancholy fancy of the forlorn 
