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Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:08:30 -0700 From: Noel Peattie <nrpeattie@earthlink.net> Hi Mike, There's a discussion of Apus in Richard Hinckley Allen's STAR NAMES, THEIR LORE AND MEANING (NY, Dover). Swallows and Martins were supposed not to have any feet! which is why the martlet, a heraldic charge, is a small bird without feet. But the "Avis Indica" is the origin of our constellation. Allen's book is worth having and may still be available (it's a reprint of the 1896 original). - Noel > From: Taichi Kato <tkato@kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp> > Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:16:18 +0900 (JST) > To: aavso-discussion@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA, > vsnet-chat@ooruri.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp > Subject: [AAVSO-DIS] (fwd) Re: birds and stars, apus v apus (Poxon) > > > From: "michael poxon" <m.poxon@virgin.net> > Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 15:17:17 +0100 > > Apparently, it was common for people to cut off the legs of Birds of > Paradise so as not to embarrass the magnificence of the plumage, whence the > latin A-pus (i.e., without legs) which is borne out by the genitive Apodis. > Mike > I wonder why >> the constellation Apus and the ornithological Apus refer to different >> genera?]
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