spelling of Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo

["Geoffrey Dabb" <>]

Dr Horsfield  (Thomas Horsfield, M.D.  F.L.S.)

 

From: Philip Veerman [
Sent: Monday, 20 August 2007 4:05 PM
To:
Subject: [canberrabirds] spelling of Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo

 

Hi All,

There seems to be a recent trend of miss-spelling the name of a Cuckoo in recent posts. To be fair to Mr Horsfield and just to help it not proliferate, I point it out. It is "Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo (with 3 capital letters, because it is a cuckoo.) Here is an example of two email messages (to & from me & Sean Dooley of big twitch fame) of why it matters and why I point it out.

Philip

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Hey Philip,

 

You’re absolutely right. I think at one stage I did know that, but over the years had certainly forgotten and slipped back to adding the e. I have just checked and to my horror it is incorrectly spelt in The Big Twitch. How embarrassing. Yet another mistake to be added to the list of things to change come the next reprint, if I ever get another one.

 

Thanks for pointing it out to me,

 

Sean

 

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From: Philip Veerman [ Sent: Saturday, 24 March 2007 6:36 PM  To: Sean Dooley

Hi Sean,

Actually it is "Horsfield's", not "Horsefield's", named after Horsfield, nothing to do with a paddock for horses. Actually the plate for Slater's 1970 field guide (page 121) calls it "Horsfield Brown Cuckoo!

 

Philip