118 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



leaving out the initial s (as the French do before p and t, e.g., epine for 

 spina, etude for studium), is it reasonable to suppose that aquila =falco 

 sacer and the Arabic sakr ? Is it possible that in the religion of old Egypt 

 the idea of sacredness may have been named from the hawk, and not the 

 hawk from the idea of sacredness ? We know that the moustached hawk, 

 either lanner or kestrel, or both, was sacred. But Mr. Massey thinks the 

 purple heron was also reverenced as the phcenix or purple bird. Is it 

 possible that here we have the key to the immemorial connexion between 

 hawk and heron, eaglet and egret? With regard to the suggested deriva- 

 tion of " bustard " from avis " tarda," if that be correct, how does Mr. 

 Wharton derive custard, gustard, and mustard ? My own theory is that 

 bustard, buzzard, bittern (= buttern) are all one and the same word, and 

 mean " the yellow-brown bird." Uuteo = buzzard in Latin, and butio 

 = bittern. Butter = yellow milk. With bittern compare the French 

 " bistre." On this theory " butter-bump " would mean •' the yellow booming 

 bird," and the Devonshire men, who called bustards " turkey-buzzards," 

 would deserve the thanks of philologists. On no other hypothesis but 

 colour can I account for the similarity in name between buteo and butio, 

 the buzzard and the bittern. — Cwfton. 



Dipper singing during severe Frost. — I am able to corroborate what 

 Mr. Mathew has said (p. 79) on this subject. On the J 3th December 

 last the thermometer was said to have registered twenty -six degrees of frost 

 in this country. A bitter north wind was blowing over a country covered 

 with frozen snow. Rooks and other birds had that mute look of despair they 

 assume in severe frosts. I was walking along a trout-stream named the 

 Finiak with my gun, and a Dipper had flown on before me. At 3.45 p.m., 

 the sun having just set, I approached a bend in the river, when I was amazed 

 to hear a bird warbling sweetly uear me. I paused and the song went on ; 

 not a loud song, but very sweet. I drew closer to the bend, when from the 

 bank near me up flew the Dipper I hud been listening to, and flew back 

 over my head up-stream, uttering its Stouechat-like warning-note. On the 

 22nd December the Rev. W. W. Flerayng wrote to me, " I heard the Dipper 

 singing to-day, in Cunaghmore, a very sweet melody." Doubtless this 

 species finds no difficulty in obtaining its prey, molluscs, &c, beneath the 

 running water of brooks when the ground is frozen like a stone, and other 

 birds are starving, so that it alone is cheerful under such circumstances. 

 I took a Dipper's nest containing five eggs, on the 8th April last, that was 

 placed on the iron shelf formed by a flange of the girder of the railway-bridge 

 over the above-named Finish River. This shelf, with the nest on it, faced 

 inwards beneath the bridge and overhung the water. The bird, which was 

 hatching, coutiuued to sit though I drummed with a stick on the irou girder 

 behind her, aud only left the nest when approached with a ladder. A second 



