Shaw's "Capsa Sparrow" alt. ditto Finch, hence [Fringilla] "Capsa" GMELIN 1789 .. (1 Viewer)

Quite convincing, but doesn´t طير بوحبيبي simply mean "darling/friendly bird" or likewise? Seach for it (in Arabic) and you´ll find parrots as well by the same name ...

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KC Foggin said:

English only please Laurent

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Dear Super Moderator Foggin, if we (here on the Bird Name Etymology Forum), only should use or analyze English words, very little would be done!

Here we deal with Spanish, French, Greek, Tagalog, Swedish, even Old Norse, and on and on and on .... and Latin of course.

Björn
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There are little birds that frequent the houses that might be called Jereed sparrows and which the Arabs name boo-habeeba or “friend of my Father” but their dress and language are very different having a reddish breast being of a small size and singing prettily. Shaw mentions them under the name of the capsa-sparrow but he is quite wrong in making them as large as the common house sparrow. Page 270 of Travels in Morocco, Volume 2, By James Richardson. Thanks Laurent for the video and Bjorn for the spell check. As a child I was often beat for my mispellings and poor penmanship. Happy times.

Mark, I was a good typo! If you hadn't done it, Laurent wouldn't have found his Youtube-clip ...

And; Sorry I had to wake that sad childhood memory!
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The following doesn't look like a very reliable scientific source, but if we are after local vernaculars, very scientific sources may not be the best place to search. Anyway: if you are in a quiet place and your computer has speakers, it may be a good idea to turn the volume down first; then click [here], and scroll down until you find:

Moineau "Bouhabibi"
Ce moineau sédentaire, surnommé "Bouhabibi" qui veut dire aimable, vit avec la population du Sud-Ouest de la Tunisie. Il niche sous les toitures et se nourrit de graines et de miettes de pain que les habitants laissent à son intention dans les cours des maisons. On l'a jamais vu ailleurs qu'au Jérid et Nefzaoua.

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(= "Bouhabeebe" sparrow
This resident sparrow, nicknamed "Bouhabeebe" which means likable, lives with the people of SW Tunisia. It breeds under the roofs and feeds on grain and bread crumbs that inhabitants leave for it in the courtyards of the houses. We never saw it but in the Jereed and Nefzaoua.)
The picture next to this text shows a House Bunting again.

mb1848 said:

"... A small bird not much bigger than a wren flits about the house as our sparrow. This is probably the Jereed sparrow of Shaw, Bou Habeebe or Capsa-sparrow, but I saw it at no other oasis except Ghat. It is of a lark colour with a light reddish breast flitting about continually twittering a short and abrupt note but very sweet and gentle.
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mb1848 said:

"There are little birds that frequent the houses that might be called Jereed sparrows and which the Arabs name boo-habeeba or “friend of my Father” but their dress and language are very different having a reddish breast being of a small size and singing prettily. Shaw mentions them under the name of the capsa-sparrow but he is quite wrong in making them as large as the common house sparrow. ..."

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Measurements: House Bunding Emberiza sahari (13–14 cm) versus House Sparrow Passer domesticus (16–18 cm), which makes the unexpected comparison to a Wren, by James James Richardson (from 1845–46), not that far-fetched or odd (i.e. comparison of body size, tail excluded).

And here we can find several examples of how the House Buntings in Gafsa (old Capsa) sounds today. If compared to Canaries or Nightingales, like Shaw did in 1738 (see Post #1) I assume its their song, not the call, we should listen to.

"Bou-habibi" actually produces quite a lot of hits in Google Books. Most are in French, but a few also in English.
Random example -
Kearney TH. 1910. The date gardens of the Jerid. National Geographic Magazine 21:543-567. [US-only access]

A charming little denizen of the villages is the sparrow that nests in the chinks of the mud brick walls. This is not our dingy city bird, but a glorified sparrow, who wears a dainty dress of russet and steel blue. Earliest dawn arouses him to cheerful twitterings and occasional snatches of sweet song. The Arabs call this bird the "Bou Habibi," the "Father of Friends," and believe that he brings good luck to any house in which he makes his nest. He is strictly a town dweller, never venturing into the desert and seldom met with in the gardens. Nothing in common has he with such nomads as the linnet and the skylark. He will not live in captivity, and attempts to naturalize him no farther away than the city of Tunis have always failed.

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l_raty said:

(Latham appears to have distorted Buffon's text on more than one account [...] So I'm now wondering if he did not also add Abyssinia to its range, possibly based on this unrelated footnote...)

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The fault might perhaps not be Latham's, however.

Although I seemingly can't find an early-enough English edition online (one which Latham might have seen), in other English editions of Buffon's work, for example [this one], [this one] or [this one], the footnote in question is, oddly enough, associated to title "The date sparrow".
In the French original [here], that same footnote is associated to a bird that Buffon describes in the text that is above the title "Le dattier ou moineau de datte". A bird which he calls here père noir à longue queue (="long-tailed black father"), and which he says appears on Fig. 1 of the Planche enluminée #183 [here] as moineau du royaume de Juda (="sparrow from the kingdom of Whydah") (= Euplectes m. macroura).

Whomever faults it might be I think we now can disregard that Footnote. I doubt we´ll ever know what Edition of Buffon's Work Latham had read ...

And Shaw's "Capsa Sparrow" certainly can´t be a Yellow-shouldered Widowbird Euplectes macroura (macrocercus), at least not male ones . Even if it would be nice to see that species "in flocks" ... "as sparrows" ... "in France". Maybe Mr. Bruce, who when in Gafsa (Capsa) was focused on ancient Ruins, simply got it all wrong, confusing it with female Widowbirds (fairly similar to common "Sparrows") ...

Either way, in my mind I think we´ve (thanks to all!) reached as far as we can regaring ...

capsa as in:
• the invalid "[Fringilla] Capsa" GMELIN 1789 [Nomen nudum/dubium ... or ?]
= the old town Capsa (Latin for today's Gafsa), in central Tunisia [syn. (Fringillaria) Emberiza sahari LEVAILLANT, 1850]

We´ll see what James think!

And, as always: Don´t hesitate to prove me/us wrong!

Calalp said:

capsa as in:
• the invalid "[Fringilla] Capsa" GMELIN 1789 [Nomen nudum/dubium ... or ?]

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Certainly not a nomen nudum.
Has been a nomen dubium until now, it seems; but if an agreement can be reached on the bird's ID, then it's not one anymore either.
Should then presumably be made a nomen oblitum.

Maybe Mr. Bruce, who when in Gafsa (Capsa) was focused on ancient Ruins, simply got it all wrong, confusing it with female Widowbirds (fairly similar to common "Sparrows") ...

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Are there any of the Euplectes that are naturally occurring north of the Sahara? I certainly do not remember any from my single visit to Tunesia (admittedly many years ago).

Niels

In this footnote, Buffon reported a comment by Bruce on a bird from the royaume de Juda = kingdom of Whydah, which was on the W African coast (current Benin, more or less); Bruce had suggested this bird was the same as a bird called mascalouf or oiseau de la Croix ("bird of the Cross") in Abyssinia. The former kingdom of Whyda is certainly within the normal range of Euplectes m. macroura, which is what the plate cited by Buffon appears to show; in Abyssinia these are replaced by E. (m.) macrocercus (in the nominate form the mantle and shoulders are yellow, in macrocercus only the shoulders are, the mantle is black). I have no idea what is/was called mascalouf or oiseau de la Croix in Abyssinia, or whether Bruce was right or not. What is clear, however, is that this footnote (in Buffon's original French text) was not at all about the "date sparrow", nor about any bird from Gafsa.

Those who appear to have erred, here, are the -- English-speaking only, it seems -- readers/translators of Buffon's text, who misinterpreted this footnote as applying to the "date sparrow". Maybe Latham was one of them, maybe he was misled by someone else, I don't know for sure. In any case, Latham somehow ended up including Abyssinia in the range of his "Capsa Finch" while none of the sources he cited did that; and in the 1793 and 1812 English translations of Buffon's text, the mark referring to this footnote in the text was erroneously moved, such that the footnote was directly associated to the "date sparrow" account title. (FWIW, I've checked a couple of German and Dutch translations, they were all OK -- it really appears to have been "an English thing".)

(So far as I know, no, no Euplectes occur naturally in the WP.)

Have just returned from holiday to find that Capsa has been staring us in the face, from our Latin dictionaries, all these years! Well done. I believe we may discount the various early descriptions; undoubtedly the bird referred to is the House Bunting Emberiza sahari (when I was in Tunisia in the 70s it was very common and familiar in the southern towns and villages, hopping about inside houses and cafes - I even saw it in Gafsa!)

P.S. have not yet got to grips with caixana, but will ponder in due course, after I have properly unpacked!!)

One of the strangest aspects of this case, to my eye, is that no one seems to have had any clear idea of the bird Gmelin's name denoted for such a long time, despite people like Richardson obviously had a pretty good idea of what Shaw's Capsa sparrow, which formed part of its base, was...
Of course, capsa Gmelin 1789 is senior of sahari Levaillant 1850. As well as to striolata Lichtenstein 1823, by the way.

P.S. will be interested to read your comments on caixana, James.