Al6 ' Recent Literature. | October 



It is instructive as well as entertaining to analyze some of the cases, to 

 see exactly how such a result is reached : for it is a lesson in the very 

 genesis of language. The origin of the native names of birds is an illus- 

 tration of the way names of any other things come to be. Grammar and 

 science and such like have nothing to do with making speech; they talk 

 about it when it has been made; they are the oft"spring, not the parents, 

 of language — a tact in natural history which some grammarians might 

 ponder to their advantage. Savages and other animals are the real masters 

 of words, — of words which tyrannize over nobody but philologists —of 

 words, which lexicographers fancy they use, when in fact the words are 

 using them all the time, and sometimes very badly. We speak feelingly, 

 being under dictionary bonds ourselves : but let us turn from this digres- 

 sion to the Ruddy Duck, for an example of what we mean. 



Erismatura rubida was first called ruddy duck in the books by Wilson 

 in 1814; Mr. Trumbull finds for it sixty-six vernacular names. Some of 

 these, it is true, are mere variants or doublets of one another, like broad- 

 hill and broadbilled differ or daffer or doffer; but at least forty of the 

 lot are fairly separate and distinct designations developed from almost as 

 many origins, etymologically speaking. They fall in several categories or 

 series, in the examination of which it would appear that almost every 

 personal peculiarity of the fowl, in points of size, shape, dress, manners 

 and habits has been pitched upon for an epithet by somebody, some- 

 where. Thus, this bird is a blue-bill, a broad-bill, a hard-headed broad- 

 bill, a sleefv broadbill ; it is a broad-billed differ, and a mud-differ, and 

 a horseturd differ — a differ, a daffer, a doffer, unqualifiedly. It is a 

 coot, a boobycoot, a bumblebee coot, a horseturd coot, a creek coot, a sleepy 

 coot. It is a sleefyhead, a sleefy duck, a sleefy brother. It is a spoonbill 

 and a butterball ; a sfoonbilled butterball., 2ind & butterduck, butterbowl, 

 butterscoot, blatkerscoot, bladderscoot, and generally a blatherskite. It 

 is a fool-duck, a deaf-duck, a daub-duck ; a bull'7ieck, shot-fouch, stub-atid- 

 twist, steel-head, tough-head, hickory-head, and a regular hardhead. It 

 is a bristle-tail, pin-tail, qitill-tail, sfinetail, stick-tail, stiff-tail, and a 

 heavy- tailed duck altogether. It is a dunbird, dun-diver, ruddy diver, 

 diftail diver ; a brozvn diving teal, a saltxvater teal, a goose-widgeon, 

 a widgeon-coot, and absolutely azvidgeon; likewise, a -water-fartridge ; 

 item, a leather-back and ?i faddywhack ; it is hardtack and a light-wood 

 knot ; a dinkey and a dickey, a greaser, 2i faddy, a noddy, and a rook. All 

 of these and other things too, is this worse than dodecasyllabified fowl 

 — this Erismatura rubida, which, to crown all with a subtle pleasantry, 

 Mr. Turnbull tells us is even known by its proper book name of ruddy 

 duck among the market gunners and city sportsmen. 



No one who is familiar with the bird can fail to see instantly some point 

 about it which has been seized upon instinctively by popular apprehen- 

 sion. As the New York 'Nation' recently remarked, these names are 

 such as any son of Adam out of Eden might have pitched upon, had he 

 been set to the same task that our first parent is alleged to have had im- 

 posed upon him. The further we follow our agreeable author, the more 

 impressed we are with the patness and transparent originality of these 



