242 THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



used by Ogilby and others, especially Englishmen. 

 Gray,^ however, used the name Alces malchis as 

 meaning "the elk or moose," transposing the 

 ch and the /. Perhaps he assumed that malchis 

 or alchis was allied to alces, and that some copyist 

 of Pliny had carelessly transposed the consonants 

 in the middle of the word. But Ainsworth, the 

 Latin lexicographer, tells us that achlis (or machlis) 

 is derived from the Greek kXivgd, "to lie down," to 

 which the a privative was prefixed, achlis thus 

 meaning something which cannot lie down, referring 

 to Caesar's fable of the elk's jointless legs. 



In some languages a name signifying simply 

 "large animal" is used to denote Cervus alces — 

 following the ''animal magnum'' used by certain 

 medieval writers. Thus granhestia is used in 

 Italian and Spanish, and granbesta in Portuguese. 

 Albertus Magnus, philosopher and alchemist, 

 who lived in the thirteenth century, seems to have 

 coined the word equicervus, "horse-deer," as a sort 

 of descriptive name for the elk of Germany, and 

 Latin writers 300 years later used onager or "wild 

 ass" as an equivalent for alces, taking notice of the 

 animal's large ears. In modern times also scientific 

 writers have exercised their ingenuity in devising 

 new names, thus adding to the general confusion. 



^Proceedings of the Zoological Society oj London, 1850, p. 224. 



