XXIX 
CRESTS OR TOP-KNOTS 
355 
nectecl with this important structure, not only in regard 
to colour, width, and length, but also the relation of the 
two parts to each other. The specific name often 
conveys information about the sounds the bird makes, 
for it may whoop, trumpet, sing, chatter, warble, babble 
or hum ; it may tell of its disposition, whether sociable, 
solitary, or pugnacious. Sometimes the name of the 
country in which the bird lives is indicated, or it maybe 
the name of the collector or the ornithologist who first 
made itnew to science.'’ Eponymous specific names 
are sometimes dignified with an initial capital. 
Some scientific names are short and expressive : 
Merops viridis is a green bee-eater; Ardea alba, 
a white heron; Anas cristata, a crested duck ; and 
Haliaetus vocifer, the screaming eagle. It often 
happens that a bird with a short name has a long 
one in ornithologic language. The entertaining brown 
and white chat so abundant and attractive around 
some of the lakes in the Rift Valley becomes 
Myrmecocichla cryptolenca in the museum catalogue. 
The longest name belongs to the saddle-billed stork, 
EphippioThynchus senegalensis, for it consists of 
twenty-eight letters ; the beak of this bird is nearly 
27 cm. long, and the ugliness of the generic name 
equals that of the bird to which it is applied : in 
this instance the length of name also coincides with the 
size of the subject, for it is a giant among birds. The 
spoonbilled sandpiper, Eury^iorhynchus pygmcBus, runs 
this stork close for letters and for eccentricity of 
bill. Although such uncouth names excite mirth 
among the uninitiated, they are indispensable to the 
student. 
The majority of birds possessing a top-knot usually 
have this fact referred to in their common as well 
as their scientific names. Crested or cristatus is 
a title of distinction among birds, like a knighthood 
among men. The term crest applies to the plume 
on a helmet as well as to the mark of ownership 
A A 2 
