It was too early in the morning, after a late night, for accurate typing,
Phillip.
> On 23 Jun 2015, at 2:24 pm, Philip Veerman <> wrote:
>
> Clive wrote that "Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger" but not
> in my copy. Christidis & Boles (RAOU Monograph 2 1994) give it as
> Phylidonyris nigra and quote Bechstein 1811. It is also given (by Cayley) as
> Meliornis, meaning honey + bird. Not that I know much, but hard to see how
> Latin Philedon = honeyeater. Wouldn't phil relate to lover, rather than
> eater? (I would have thought eater would be phag. Is edon = honey? I would
> have thought the issue comes down to what was the spelling given at the time
> it was first described, being the correct name, unless there is a reason to
> determine that as invalid or changed. Should priority of name be changed just
> because of mismatch of gender between genus and species name? What a crazy
> idea that is, especially if it is as hard to decide as it would appear to be
> here.
>
> I am amused by Carl's "is a bit of a manmade word". Assuming that man
> includes women, I wonder what other sort of word exists. (Carl first left the
> n out of Phylidonyris and in the 2nd message extended this by leaving out the
> ny.) Some of these changes happen in books just because someone made a
> mistake and many other books copied the mistake. Good example is in the
> Sparrowhawk wrongly listed in many books as Accipiter cirrhocephalus instead
> of Accipiter cirrocephalus.
>
> Philip
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birding-Aus On Behalf Of
> Carl Clifford
> Sent: Tuesday, 23 June 2015 10:49 AM
> To: Martin Butterfield
> Cc: Birding-Aus
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] White-cheeked Honeyeater
>
> Hmm, that is slightly different to what is said in James Jobling's "A
> Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names. If Phylidoris is one of those
> Greek-Latin hybrid words, it probably should be given a specific epithet that
> is neuter. No doubt whoever agreed on the name thought they were a better
> classicist than they actually were.
>
> You are right about giving words a gender, a right pain. Could be worse
> though. Latin could be still alive and well and we would have to deal with
> the declension of nouns on to of their gender. No wonder the Roman Empire
> declined.
>
> Carl Clifford
>
>
>
>> On 23 Jun 2015, at 9:44 am, Martin Butterfield <> wrote:
>>
>> According to "Australian Bird Names a complete guide" by Ian Fraser and
>> Jeannie Gray the Philedon element comes from the Greek for "attractive",
>> The Cinnyris bit does link back to sunbird .
>>
>> The business of gender of names all makes me glad we speak English, as with
>> all the irrationalities in that language, at least we avoided daftness like
>> having to decide what gender to apply to words such as the French
>> "l'internet"!
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> Martin Butterfield
>> http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/
>>
>>> On 22 June 2015 at 21:24, Carl Clifford <> wrote:
>>> Hi Clive,
>>>
>>> Bit of an update on the mystery. I have been doing a bit of a rummage
>>> through the library, and it seems that Phylidoyris is a bit of a manmade
>>> word. It comes from the French, Phylédon (Honeyeater), which comes from the
>>> Latin Philedon (honeyeater), cobbled together with the Latin Cynnyris
>>> (sunbird). No wonder the taxonomists couldn't decide which sex the word
>>> was. Probably should have been called nigrum, the neuter form.
>>>
>>> Carl Clifford
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 22 Jun 2015, at 4:17 pm, Clive Nealon <> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Greetings,
>>>> Can someone explain, please, why HANZAB, Pizzey & Knight (8th Ed), and
>>>> Morcombe field guides list White-cheeked Honeyeater as Phylidonyris nigra,
>>>> and
>>>> IOC and Christidis & Boles list it as Phylidonyris niger?
>>>> Thanks.
>
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