308 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



I have said that it is called the Widow by the Portu- 

 guese, but I am since better informed that it is called 

 the Whidah Bird, because it is brought frequently to 

 Lisbon from the Kingdom of Whidah on the coast of 

 Africa." Buffon, or rather Gueneau de Montbeillard, 

 who wrote the ornithological part of his great work, 

 attributes the error to the resemblance between the 

 name of Whidah, or, as the Portuguese spell it, Juida, 

 and the word which signifies widow in the language of 

 the latter; but this term (viuva) is by no means so 

 closely allied to it in sound as the English misnomer. 

 Latham states by mistake that the name of Widow 

 originated with Willughby, who only knew the bird by 

 the description of Aldrovandus ; but he rightly attri- 

 butes the correction to Edwards, who appears from this 

 history to have been also the unconscious author of the 

 blunder. 



The name thus accidentally given has now, however, 

 been universally adopted both in popular and scientific 

 language. In the latter the generic term of Vidua is 

 applied by M. Cuvier to a well marked little group 

 among the Finches, nearly related to the Linnets of 

 our own climate, but differing from them in having two 

 or more of the intermediate quill-feathers of the tail in 

 the male birds lengthened in a very extraordinary de- 

 gree. These elongated feathers were considered by 

 Mauduyt and Montbeillard as tail-coverts ; but M. 

 Vieillot has satisfactorily shown that they form in 

 reality a part of the tail itself. Although apparently 

 placed above the other tail-feathers, they occupy the 

 central station in the series, and are necessary to 

 equalize the number of quills which the male birds 

 exhibit in their summer dress, with those of the females, 

 or of the males themselves in their winter plumage, 

 when the intermediate feathers do not differ in any 



