150 
General Notes. 
with isothermal lines.” As regards local details this is doubtless in some 
measure true, but, considering the subject broadly, it may be safely 
asserted that if there is any principle in ontological geography about 
which students of the subject generally agree, it is that temperature exerts 
a direct and controlling influence upon the distribution of life over the 
surface of the globe. As regards birds, and probably plants and marine 
life, if not animal and vegetable life in general, the phrase “ isotheral 
lines ” should not be taken as meaning lines of mean annual temperature, 
but lines of equal temperature for particular seasons of the year, since in 
different groups it has been found that the isochrymal or isotheral lines 
are more strictly the boundary-lines for species and faunae and florae than 
the mean annual lines. Professor A. E. Verrill* long since pointed out that 
the mean temperature of the breeding season is of more importance as 
regards the limitation of birds than that of the whole year, — a suggestion 
well supported by later investigation s.f It is to be borne in mind, how- 
ever, in this connection, that the lines of mean temperature as laid down 
on charts are only approximate, and do not follow in detail all the minor 
curves, as becomes apparent at once on a detailed study of any limited 
region of diversified area. Hence we cannot expect to find the limits of 
species agreeing in detail with any of the lines as represented on our best 
meteorological charts. Again, the boundary-lines of species are not con- 
stant, and the same is also true of lines of mean temperature, varying as 
they do more or less in different years. These facts obviously show that 
we need never expect to be able to lay down an absolute or rigid line 
of demarcation for either species or faunae, but that such boundaries must 
ever be provisional and approximate, and hence somewhat open to differ- 
ences of interpretation. — J. A. Allen, Cambridge, Mass. 
Phalarope, — An Etymological Blunder. — Happening, not long ago, 
to be a little curious about the exact meaning of the word Phalarope or Pha- 
laropus, I took occasion to consult a Greek dictionary on the question, and 
by so doing unearthed a somewhat curious etymological blunder. Bris- 
son, who was the first to give the name to the genus, J explains it as fol- 
lows : “ Phalarope, a name that I have given to the birds of this genus, 
because of the resemblance of their feet to those of the Coot, called, in 
Greek, cfuAapis.” Now, Phalaropus, according to all rules for the compo- 
sition of Greek and Latin words, does not mean “ coot-foot ” at all, as Bris- 
son intended it should, but “ white-patched-foot” (from phalaros, “patched 
with white,” and pous, “foot”), which is a manifestly inapplicable name, 
since the Phalaropes all have black or green feet. Phalaridopus (from 
phalaris, genitive phalaridos, “ coot,” and pous) would mean “ coot-foot,” 
* Amer. Journ. Sci. and Arts, 2d Ser., V 1. XLI, 1866, p. 249. 
t See Bull. Mus. Comp. Zook, Yol. II, 1871, ^p. 390. Merriam, Rev. Birds 
of f'onn., 1877, p. 2, etc. 
i Ornithologie, YI, p. 12, 1760. 
