Evening star., 1944-04-21
This and That
By Charles E. TraceDeH.
DUNBAR HIGH SCHOOL.

Dear Sir:
Living in the Brookland section and
having many trees in my back yard, I
have many squirrels and birds as friends.
have learned much about them from
reading your most interesting column.
"It may be that can help you in one
point which you mentioned in tonights
column. In giving an illustration that
scientific names, too, are sometimes in
accurate you say that the purple finch,
for instance, has the Latin word for
purple" in it, yet this bird is definitely
not purple, at least in any known mod
ern sense. 1t is, rather, rosy, or wine
colored'
II looked up the scientific name of the
finch in Birds of America and find that
it is Carpodacus purpureus. Il expected
to find the word 'purpureus' after read
ing your article.)
Teaching Latin to high school class
in Virgil, have occasion to emphasize
that purpureus in Latin usually means
crimson, rosy, ruddy' 1t may mean
purple Virgil uses the word in both
meanings. Ovid uses the expression
Aurora purpurea' which would mean
'rose-red dawn. 1t seems the word
may take its meaning from the context.
Therefore, I write to ask you if it is not
possible that the scientific name is cor
rect, after all?
Very truly yours, C. c. Med"
-
Harper's Latin Dictionary defines
purpureus-a-um as purple -colored,
purple; including very different shades
OF color, as red, reddish, violet, brown
ish. blackish."
Cassell's Latin English Dictionary de-
fines purpureus-a-un1sa sas purple, and so
OF shades resembling purple, blackish,
dark-red, dark-brown, dark-violet."
Horace, too, speaks Of Aurora as rose
red, rosy, using 'purpurea."
Such expressions as clothed In pur-
Pile" and with purple feathers upon his
helmet" can only leave the modern
reader wondering just which tint was
meant from so wide a variety.
This is where the trouble arises in re-
gard to scientific names of birds. The
average bird lover, without our corre-
spendent's precise knowledge, takes such
name as "Carpodacus purpureus" at
its face value. If he happens to know
that "Carpodacus" means fruit bitter"
~A~ "AAA AASo tOobt ot Llldk
means what it seems to say, simply
purple.
Mabel Osgood Wright, in her fascinat-
ing volume, "Birdcraft," says of the pur-
pie finch:
Long ago, being told that song
which had delighted me belonged to the
purple finch. tried to obtain a good
view Of him, expecting to see a bird
whose purple coat should match his
regal voice-but not at all. The first
specimen that I caught with my field
glass; when in the act of singing, was
dull and sparrowlike. Then followed
the explanation that the males take two
seasons to perfect their plumage. and
that even then they are not purple, but
merely washed locally with a peculiar
shade of red.
L think many early ornithologists
who are responsible for the naming of
our birds must have been either color
ollnd or possessed of very limited vo-
cabularleS, for a modern reading of
many OF their color terms means dismay
and total collapse of the unfortunate
novice"
FROM the ancient standpoint, then. we
may say that the name purple finch is a
good one, but from the viewpoint of the
modern in his garden, watching the
BIRDS, not SO good, for the finch he sees,
when he sees what is called the purple
nnch, Will not be purple at all. in the
way most of us think Of purple.
Which goes to show, certainly, that
we should all be better Latin scholars!
Most OF us are helpless in this respect
but the young people in our schools can
do better. They should realize the
mighty stream of beauty and power
which has come down to us through the
ages and which we call the Latin Ian
guage, how it permeates our own be-
loved tongue and gives Zest and vim to
everything We say Knowing this. thev
should apply themselves to their daily
lessons and rely upon their own brains
not upon ponies" as we oldsters once
did. The teacher of Latin and his pupils
combine to bring down to the present
something of the virtue of the past. In
this way they help to keep the balance
true, dif1icult thing TO do IN the mod
srn world.