Note 298 — Chapter IX

Polyhorus tharus. In relation to the word ‘tharus’, which figures as a sort of scientific (or doggerel) cognomen to this bird, Mr. W. H. Hudson once pointed out to me that, like some other ‘scientific facts’, it originated in a mistake. The Pampa Indian name of the bird is ‘traré’. Molina (Don Juan Ignacio), in his ‘History of Chile’, happened to spell the word ‘tharé’, instead of ‘traré’, and then proceeded to make a dog-Latin form of it. Thus the bird has received its present scientific name.