THE namp: mammal and the idea expressed. 548 



But some English authors who were willing to use a \ernacular 

 substitute for mammalia would have neither mammals nor mammifers. 



The Rev. William Kirby, in 1835, in the once famous Bridgewater 

 treatise On the Power, Wisdom, and (loodness of God, as manifested 

 in the Creation of Animals and in the History, Habits, and Instincts, 

 declined' to accept either, but invariably used, as the English 

 equivalent of mammalia, 'Mnannnalians.''' Chapter xxiv is entitled 

 ''Functions and instincts. Mammalians;" in this, it is explained, 

 ''the whole body, constituting the class, though sometimes varying in 

 the manner, are all distinguished by giving suck to their young, on 

 which account they were denominated by the Swedish naturalist 

 'mammalians""' (H, p. 476). In a footnote to this statement, Kirby 

 adds, "Cuvier calls them 'mammifers.' Imt there seems no reason for 

 altering the original term.''' 



We may cordially indorse the sentiment of Kirby, and, doing so, 

 refuse to follow him in action and to adopt his modification of "the 

 original term,'' and revert to the genuine original — mammals, or, in 

 the singular, mammal. 



No instance of the use of the singular- mammalian — has been found 

 in Kirby's work or in any of his successors', nor does the singular 

 form ''mannnal" occur in the Pantologia. There is, indeed, one 

 instance of its use in the Vestiges of Creation (Harper ed., p. 284); 

 but as it was followed by a. plural verb, it was inadvertently used. 



The science which treats of mammals had to l)e named. Mammal- 

 og}^ was naturally thought of, but many objected to it. The French, 

 who would not tolerate mammal or mammaux, although the\^ had 

 no objection to the analogous animal and animaux, on the whole 

 took kindly to "mammalogie" or " mammologie." Substitutes, it is 

 true, were otfered; Desmarest proposed "mastologie" and De Blain- 

 ville " mastozoologie," and the latter was admitted ])y Littre to his 

 great dictionary, but they did not secure a permanent foothold, and 

 " mammalogie" is the term now generally used. 



The objection to " mammalogy" was and is that it is a hybrid and 

 also a badly compounded and clipped word. It is formed of the Latin 

 uiannna (a breast or teat) and the Greek sufiix, -Xoyia; the apparent 

 meaning is a discourse on breasts rather than breast-bearing animals. 

 Greek nouns also generally have the vowel "o" rather than "a" 

 before the second component. There is no simple word Xoyia in 

 Greek meaning discourse, and the suffix in question is connected with 

 the word Xoyo^ or, rather, the verb Xtyco. The only Greek word 

 Xoyia (occurring in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, xvi, 1, 2) 

 means " a collection for the poor," and therefore Xoyia is misleading 

 and has misled several to my knowledge. The Greek words " diko- 

 logia," " et^^mologia," "philologia," and "theologia," of course are 



