He looked expectantly at the boys.
"Dino—dino—" murmured Bud. "That must mean—why that must mean fierce or terrible, if it's anything like Dinosaur."
"I'll encourage you so far as to say you're on the right track. In other words, you are half right," said the scientist. "Suppose you take a try at it," and he turned to Dick.
"There isn't much left," laughed the lad.
"Suppose you take it this way," suggested the scientist. "Lop off just di—and assume that Bud has used that. You have left the syllable nornis."
"Nornis—nornis—it doesn't seem to mean anything to me," sighed Dick, for he was rather disappointed at Bud's success and his own seeming failure so far.
"I'll help you a little," offered the professor. "Instead of saying di-nornis, call it din-ornis. Did you ever hear the word ornithology?"
"Sure!" assented Bud. "It means—ology that's the science of," he was murmuring to himself. "Don't tell me now—I have it—the science or study of birds. That's what ornithology is—the study of birds."
"Correct," said the professor. "Ornis is the Greek word for bird, and when we put in front of it Di, or din, meaning fear, thunder or terror, we have a word meaning a terribly large bird, and that's just what the Dinornis is—an extinct bird of great size.
"But what I started to tell you was how we can sometimes—not always and sometimes not correctly—reconstruct from a single bone the animal that once carried it around with it. The Dinornis is a good example.