45. Yellow-breasted Apalis It is always worthwhile looking up the meaning of these names. They’re often ancient Greek or Latin. The name ‘apalis’ comes from the Greek word, hapalos, which means ‘delicate’ or ‘gentle’, which suits this pretty, unassuming little bird: subdued colours of grey, brown, white and yellow. They are busy creatures, getting on with their lives and leaving the rest of us to get on with ours. Those who undertook serious ornithology in its early days, many of them ‘amateurs’, wanted of course to fit avian classification into the established rules for scientific nomenclature that used both Greek and Latin. They would have been very familiar with these ‘classical’ languages, and Greek and Latin would have then been easily understood by formally educated speakers of other languages. Of course, the people who lived and worked among thriving populations of birds always had their own local names for them. A few of the scientific names for birds do actually incorporate the traditional, ‘local’ names. One example is the name ‘turaco’, which was derived in the 18th century from a word in a West African language. Any suggestions which language? (Incidentally, the pronunciation said to be correct stresses the first syllable: too-raco.) Birds of AFRICAMA House 94 Birds of AFRICAMA House 95