NOTES AND QUERIES. 



101 



were an adjective from /era it would be fetalis with the first vowel short, 



and that in Latin, as in other languages, we may have two words absolutely 



alike in spelling, but differing in pronunciation, meaning, and derivation — 



witness populus, a poplar tree, and populus, the people. Moreover, though 



fSralis, with the short vowel, may not be found in writings that have come 



down to us, we certainly have (not, I admit, in what is called classical 



Latin, but for all that in Latin) the adverb feraliter, as Mr. Wharton 



has already pointed out (supra p. 19), and explained, as he says, by 



Du Cange as ferarum more, " in the manner of wild beasts." In this 



Du Cange is supported by Facciolati, while Adelung goes even further 



and recognises a Latin adjective/erah's, which he translates by the German 



wild, grausam, and then adds, naturally enough, todtlich, traurig. A man 



must be confident of his scholarship who demurs to these three authorities. 



I have had, however, the curiosity to examiue the passages cited by 



Du Cange in support of his rendering. They are three in number, one 



from the Benedictine Annals (iv. p. 577) may be ambiguous, but another, 



and the earliest, from Fulgentius, who died A. D. 550, and wrote " Dum 



enim amor noviter venit, ut leo feraliter invadit "(Mythol. lib. iii. 1), seems 



to show that the lion's onset was merely " in the manner of a wild beast," 



and not necessarily " fatal ").* The third passage, however, I hold to be 



conclusive. It is from the Pisan Chronicle (as given by Muratorius 



(vi. col. 105), and runs thus : — " contra Pisanos fremebant illico feraliter et 



dentibus frendebant "— i. e., " There they roared against the people of Pisa 



in the manner of wild beasts and gnashed with their teeth." To translate 



feraliter in this sentence by "fatally" would be to spoil the metaphor, and 



quite inadmissible. I am all for purity of language, but those who object to 



- feral" must be very careful how they write. To be consistent they must 



never use " biology" in the sense generally attached to it ; " binomial" and 



" terminology " must be still more hateful, and they had better beware of 



" avine " or " avian " — both of which I observe are creeping into use. I trust 



they will at least avoid the still more barbarous phrase of " collecting a 



specimen" and then of "sexing" it. For my own part I feel indebted to 



Colonel Hamilton Smith not only for giving us a word that was very much 



wanted, without which, indeed, we could not conveniently get on, but, as 



I consider, for making that word exactly what it ought to be. The beasts to 



which it applies are not truly wild, yet they live " in the manner of wild 



beasts"— they are " feral" not " ferine" ; but by all means in pronunciation 



let us keep the first vowel short, and we shall then be able to read our 



Blyth, our Darwin, and I know not how many other writers, with no fear of 



«« fatal " effects.— Alfred Newton (Magdalene College, Cambridge, Feb. 4). 



* This is the more important, since modern dictionary-makers refer to 

 Fulgentius, apparently without having looked at the passage, and translate 

 the word "fatally." 



