110 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
immediately it is given, and it will be used by them provided 
it appeals to them as appropriate. With Maori names, too, 
where there was no written language, a great deal doubtless 
depended upon the first name to be recorded and commonly 
accepted among readers, and something upon the reliability of 
the man recording it. There is but one form of the name huia, 
but of most of the other names there are several forms, and of 
some there are a great many. It may be that an accepted 
echoic name was no more than a compromise; it did not exactly 
represent the sound people fancied they heard, but represented 
it more or less approximately; and it must be remembered that 
a sound once suggested may be heard where it was not before 
heard, or not heard consciously. There are, for instance, two 
names by which the morepork, the common New Zealand owl, 
is known,—koukou and ruru. When the bird is heard close 
at hand, these names as it were superimpose and become one; 
—the cry is often distinctly krou-krou, the “r” sound being 
the continental “r. ” As, however, the Maori consonantal sounds 
are single—every consonant being followed by a vowel,—the 
sound krou-krou could not be reproduced by them; and accord- 
as the or the “r” was the more prominent to the nairie- 
giver, or name-user, so it was repeated as koukou or ruru. So 
with variation in many of the echoic names. 
A few of the European names of birds, too, are echoic; the 
finch is said to be so named from its call-note, the typical 
finch, the chaffinch, being known also as pink, and spink; the 
Danish name is finke, and the German finck; the French name 
is pinson. The cuckoo is, in the three countries, giog, kukuk, 
and coucou. Many more of the names are from the appearance 
of the bird; goldfinch, green-linnet, redpoll, white-throat, 
blackcap; these are purely descriptive. The last named is in 
f rench rossignol a la liouppe noir,—the black-tufted nightin¬ 
gale, a beautiful name; and the whitethroat is similarly gorge 
blanche. The name white-ear is descriptive, but the anatomical 
term is a euphemism most misleading; the name is said (OC, 
p. 177) to be derived from Anglo-Saxon words meaning “white 
rump. The name of this bird has been cited (OC, p. 177), as 
