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Argus or
Argus-Pheasant
The name originally applied in ornithology to the extraordinary and beautiful
birds of the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and Borneo, which are not distantly
related to the Peacock. The name was also used by English sportsmen
in old colonial India for the species of the genus Tragopan, which are
supposed to have more affinity to the true Pheasants. In each case the
ocellated plumage has suggested the allusion to the well-known personage
in classical mythology.
Artamus
A genus of true Passerine birds founded by Vieillot. The genus indicates
the Wood-Swallows or Swallow-Shrikes of some ornithologists,
these being birds which are considered by many to be the nearest neighbours
of the Hirundinidae (Swallow),
making some approach to them in their long wings, and habit of catching
insects in continuous flights. However they form a separate
Family Artamidae, possessing patches of Powder-Down. Some
15 species have been described, more than half of them being found in Australia,
while at least one inhabits India.
Artery (adj.
arterial)
Arteries are the vessels through which the blood leaves the heart; no matter
if this blood be arterial or venous, as, for instance, is that which flows
through the pulmonary arteries (see Vascular System).
Ateal, Atteile
or Attile
A word, presumably a bird's name, occurring with variations of spelling
in many old Scottish records (as, for example, in 1600, Act. Jac. VI. cap.
23), and apparently used in Orkney for some kind of Duck so lately as 1848
according to Baikie and Heddle (Hist. Nat. Gread. p. 79), who, possibly
by mistake, apply it to the Pochard. The same was done in 1886 by Mr. Thomas
Edmondston (Etymolog. Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect)
who associated it with the old Norsk Tjaldr, which he called "Turdus
marinus," but is properly the Oyster-Catcher. Of unknown etymology,
it may be connected with the Scandinavian Atteling-And or Atling,
which again may be cognate with Taling, the Dutch for Teal.
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