Greater scaup refers to a seabird mentioned by Aristotle and others and is thought to refer to a duck, auklet or other seabird. The species name "marila" is from the Greek word for charcoal embers or coal dust. The greater scaup was first studied by Linnaeus in 1761. Male greater scaup from America are distinguishable from those in Europe and Asia by the stronger vermiculations, worm-like carvings or marks on the mantle and scapulars, and are considered a separate subspecies, "A. m. nearctica". Females of the two subspecies are indistinguishable. Based on size differences, a Pleistocene paleosubspecies, "Aythya marila asphaltica", has also
The Bird Lover the lai develops somewhat differently: instead of a happy ending, the lai ends in tragedy. A "sophisticated rationalization" of the type is found in Chrétien de Troyes's "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart", where Lancelot appears at Guinevere's heavily barred window and cuts his fingers bending the bars back. In French scholarship, this type is often referred to as ""loiseau bleu"" or "the blue bird", so named for a story by Madame d'Aulnoy. The Bird Lover The Bird Lover, also known as The Prince as Bird, is a type of narrative structure in folklore, no. 432 in the Aarne–Thompson classification