198 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



Aristotle has given us accounts which are interesting 

 either on account of their accuracy or their blunders, 

 or the remnants of folklore contained in them ; but 

 my object is not so much to examine these accounts 

 in detail, as to give some general idea of our in- 

 debtedness to Aristotle as the father of all serious 

 inquiry into the nature and habits of birds. I will 

 conclude by quoting one example of the value of 

 records of animal life made two thousand -years ago. 

 When we compare such habits with the records of 

 animals at the present day, it is possible that here 

 and there we may find some slight difference ; and 

 if our records of to-day be care-fully preserved for 

 another two thousand years, it may be that other 

 differences may be found to have established them- 



Tern, and that the word as used by the Greeks generally must be 

 so understood. I readily allow that a word which had become so 

 mixed up in a mythological tangle as this one may have been used 

 of more birds than one ; and I agree that the bird on the Greek 

 coins mentioned by the Canon is almost beyond doubt a Tern. 

 The one point I would maintain is, that in the description 

 quoted above Aristotle was thinking of our Kingfisher, Alcedo 

 ispida ; and Canon Tristram himself seems to acknowledge this, 

 though he will not allow that the word Kvdv eos can mean blue (see 

 above p. 191, note 1). 



I endeavoured to explain the myth of the Halcyon days in a 

 note to the third edition of A Year with the Birds, p. 259. My 

 explanation, however, does not go very far ; and I take this 

 opportunity of saying that those who are interested in the unravel- 

 ling of such tangles may look forward to a much bolder and more 

 far-reaching solution of the difficulty in the forthcoming Glossary 

 of Greek Birds by Professor Darcy Thompson. 



