2728 Birds. 



not escape the eye of the illustrious Swede when he was forming a 

 name for the only species which was at that time known. Instead, 

 however, of thinking it unnecessary to term it any other thing than 

 merely Otis cnemus, or ' the bustard with the knee,' he compounded 

 another word along with kneme, to show that the peculiarity in the 

 knee was ' a swelling,' the Greek word for which is oidos, aud hence 

 the w 7 hole name Otis OSdicnemus, or ' the bustard with the thick, or 

 swollen, knee.' And this was proceeding upon a principle much 

 more philosophical than is to be found in such a name as QEdicnemus 

 superciliaris, where there is no word in composition to show in what 

 the peculiarity about the eyebrow consists. We meet, also, with a 

 bird which is called Drymoica aberrans, which, when translated, must 

 mean ' the deviating dweller in oak forests ' (p. 70) : but from what, 

 it may be asked, does this bird deviate ? To such a question the spe- 

 cific name does not, strictly speaking, supply any answer; but it may 

 be presumed that it is a deviation in structure and habits from the 

 other species of that genus of birds with which it has been associated. 

 Let it be remembered, however, that such an association is caused by 

 the artificial arrangement of writers on Ornithology, by whom the 

 bird has perhaps been forced unnaturally into a position which by its 

 Creator it was never intended to occupy. Its structure, we need not 

 doubt, is admirably adapted to those habits which he designed it to 

 exercise ; aud to call it aberrant because it adheres to these habits, 

 and to them only, is surely neither natural nor philosophical. Once 

 more : Count Von Muhle proposes to assign the scientific name of 

 Numenius Syngenicos (p. 83) * to a bird which he is disposed to con- 

 sider as a new species of curlew. The specific designation in this 

 case is, I presume, the Greek adjective suggenikos, half in a Greek 

 half in a Latin form. In Scapula's Lexicon (fol. p. 293 ; Amsterdam, 

 1652) it is explained as " generis propinquitate conjunctus — cognatus," 

 that is, 'one connected by affinity of race — a blood relation.' The 

 meaning, therefore, of Numenius Syngenicos, is neither more nor less 



* In the same page Dr. Wagner says that Blyth (Annals of Nat. Hist. xii. 74) is 

 inclined to place Glareola among the Caprimulginae. Not having seen Mr. Blyth's 

 paper, I am not aware if, in confirmation of his opinion, he has made reference to 

 the egg of the Glareola torquata. This egg is beautifully delineated — as everything 

 is which comes from his pencil— by Mr. Hewitson, on Plate 160 of his ' British 

 Oology' (Supplement; 1842). It is altogether unlike the egg of any of the Chari- 

 driadee, and has a very close resemblance to that of our own goatsucker (Caprinudgw 

 Europmut), both in its peculiar outline and in the marble-like blotches and spots with 

 which it is marked. 



