NOTES. 499 



"wbicli Sand- Martins commonly build. In reality, KMriXui is 

 a name used by Anaereon (99) for tbe Swallow ; and KWTikos is 

 a familar classical adjective, meaning " prattling," as xwtiAXsjv 

 means "to prattle." When Boie first wrote Cotile he un- 

 doubtedly had in his mind this idea of "twittering;" and all 

 the confusions about a " cup" has arisen from a subsequent 

 misprint. 



" Every writer subsequent to Linnaeus appears to have spelt 

 the name of our common Wild Duck Anas hoschas. There 

 seems to have been no reason for following Willoughby and Ray 

 in this matter, when continental authors of the ' heroic age,' of 

 ornithology, such as Gesner and Aldrovandi, were generally 

 content with ' boscas.' That the latter is the correct form there 

 can be no doubt. 



fioa-}ca5 is a small kind of Duck in Aristotle (Hist. An, 

 VIII. 315); /Sao-xaj means the same in Aristophanes (885) ; 

 iac-Kus which seems a cognate word of nearly similar 

 application, occurs in Athena3us (IX. 52.'i By no rules of con- 

 sonantal interchange could there be a substitution of x (^^V foJ* 

 H. (k) ; nothing but a misprint can account for tlie introduction of 

 the h. The co-existence of ' tench' with tinea, and ' perch' with 

 TTspxy) afford no parallel instance. On no ground but that 

 6i the necessity of following Linnaeus so blindly as even to 

 perpetuate his errors, can any one henceforth write the specific 

 name of the Mallard othervvise than Anas boscas. It is, no 

 doubt, a little matter; but any one who has vainly tried to 

 get at the history of the word by hunting for ^o(rx<=^s in any 

 lexicon, will be grateful for the correction. 



From his variable spelling of the generic name of the Wry- 

 neck, it is certain that LinnaBus held no very definite opinion 

 on the matter. The ' Yunx' of the Syst. Nat 1766, was the 

 * I'l/nx' of earlier editions, and of the Fauna Suecica. Yet it 

 is perfectly clear that Aristotle wrote Vvy^ and that the word 

 was always a dissyllable. Witness Theocritus's constantly re- 

 curring hexameter (Id. IL 17, 22,27, &c.) : — 



" The name comes from the bird's cry sounding like a repe- 

 tition of 'iv or \otj an interjection used to denote the loud 

 shout of woe ; whence the verbs iu^co ' I cry aloud.' By the 

 Stricklandian Code § 14, Vvy^ becomes in Latin iynx : let the 

 name then be so written, not neglecting the notes of diasresis 

 and there can be no doubt on the subject for the future. 



" There is one word more which stands in some need of 

 alteration. Linnseus called the Woodcock Scolopax rusticola 

 (S. N. 12th edit, 1 page 243.) I cannot help thinking he 



