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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mb1848" data-source="post: 2821022" data-attributes="member: 31036">"Let's compromise and call it Nutmeg Munia" Yes!In the Asiatic Researches, (1836) Hodgson remarks, “Munia, the name we have assigned to these birds, is well known to the Tarai and to the Hills as the generic appellation of several species of tiny grossbills, distinguished for their familiarity with man, their gregarious habits, their depredation upon the rice crops and their ingenious nests”.   Munia is no longer the genus name of these birds.  It is Lonchura (Sykes 1832 PZS p. 95) .  Latham called it the Cowry Grosbeak.  Albin called them Chinese Sparrows.  Horsfield in Java called them Pekking.  George Edwards says an Englishman working for the India Co. says it was called a Gowry or Coury Bird because they were sold for a small shell that was like money. Edwards also gave it the Latin name Passer indicus.  This name is cited in Linnaeus’ description in 1758 of his Loxia  punctulata.   The nutmeg tree originates in Banda, the largest of the Molucca islands.  The nutmeg part of the bird name is for the color?  Nutmeg is from the Latin for musky nut.  And the mannikan , Dutch for little man to describe the small size of the birds?? The bird is also called Spice Finch.  I guess I like Munia because it is from a word in a local Asian language where the bird is from??? (unlike Mannikan) Scaly-breasted is descriptive, or more descriptive than Nutmeg.</blockquote>

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