"1 31 T-JENPA EST PASSER."
[To TWO EDITOR Or TUB "seserwroa.-]
do not propose to preach or to denounce the crusade against the rat and the sparrow, further than to suggest
Caution R.gaiIII4 disturbing the balance of Nature- My purpose is simply philological, though my inquiry brings me, as suelt inquiries will, into contact with reality. One conv- spoudent of the Times writes, whether in praise or biome I do not remember, pele04 es t passer ; "Pedantic " remarks that passer is m,ascullge ; the correspondent retorts that be specially meant the female sparrow, and asks what is the feminine form- "pedantic" is clearly right. You might pay Delptida es t passer to yonr hailitl or your gardener, if you phought lit; but yon mast not say it to your tntor, if you are in plaits pupigari, or in writing literary English, if you are grown pp. Possibly you might say passer in.as or passer femina. There is an analogous use in pave, the peacock. But masculine or feminine alterna.tiyes are seldom to be found. When the distinction wag, so to speak, insisted upon by the creature, it was made. The peaceck is not an animal that can he ignored, and the male is so different from the female that language had to be accommodated to the fact. Scongthing of the same kind is true of gaTho and gallisto (copk and hen). The dis- tinction could not be ignored. But the less obtrusive duck kanas) is feminine only, the goose (anser) and the swan .(eye4tts op o,/or) only masculine. The owl seems to have demanded the same recognition, and was known as either bubo or maga. The blackbird is so common an object, and the male so easily distinguished from the feytaie, that the alternatives vleralus and nterit/4 were in use. Grammarians differ about the legitimacy of tardas and turda; byt then we see less of the thrush than of the blackbird. The most curious defect is that of a Masculine form for lusciaia, the nightingale; but then the ancients seem not to have known that the songster is the male. Aguila (the eagle) is feminine, and we might
suppose that this use recognises the fsat that the female of some birds of prey is the larger and more powerful; but then roultur (the vulture) and accipiter (the hawk), ef which this is
conspicuously true, are masenling. otuna (the quail) is always fetninin,e, though it was certainly wily the males that fought (ecce coturnices inter seta praelia vivaat). Perdix (the partridge) is common; but then mythology comes in. Perdix was the nephew of Daedalus, and changed into it bird. He had to be accounted for.—I am, Sir, &c., SENEX.
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