NAMES FROM HABITS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

NAMES FROM HABITS.

Perhaps you never thought that some creatures get their names from certain habits. Certainly this is so with birds. Some of them have very funny names — and funny habits, too. There is the butcher bird, which is so named because it kills small birds, mice and grasshoppers, and hangs theui on thorn bushes for future use—like a butcher hangs up joints of meat in his shop. - Some birds are named from the kind of nests they build—the oven bird builds a nest which looks like an old-fashioned Dutch oven, with the entrance at the side. There is the "hang" bird, which hangs its pouch-like nest on the end of a branch. One bird is known as the "scissors tail." Its tail opens and shuts, just as you would open and shut a pair of scissors. And the "wagtail,"' which wags its tail every time it draws a breath. Names for habits, yon see.

The shape or kind of bill a bird lias often has a lot to do with its name— such as the spoonbill, the crossbill, the hornbill, the ivorybill and others. Many birds get their names from real or fancied resemblance of their call notes or song, to some word. In fact, more get their names in this way than any other. You have only to think of the cuckoo to realise this.