Classical element to use the term "element (στοιχεῖον, "stoicheion")" in reference to air, fire, earth, and water. The ancient Greek word for element, "stoicheion" (from "stoicheo", "to line up") meant "smallest division (of a sun-dial), a syllable", as the composing unit of an alphabet it could denote a letter and the smallest unit from which a word is formed. A similar alphabetic metaphor may be the origin of the equivalent Latin word "elementum" (from which the English word comes), possibly based on the names of the letters 'l', 'm', and 'n', though the validity of this idea is debated. In his "On
Henderson archaic pigeon Henderson archaic pigeon The Henderson archaic pigeon ("Bountyphaps obsoleta"), or Henderson Island archaic pigeon, is an extinct bird in the Columbidae, or pigeon family. It was described in 2008 as a new genus and species from subfossil remains found on Henderson Island in the Pitcairn Group of south-eastern Polynesia. The genus was named for both the ship HMS "Bounty" with which, following the famous mutiny, Europeans first discovered the Pitcairn Islands, and for the former bounty the bird provided as food; with the Greek "phaps" (wild pigeon). The specific epithet comes from the Latin adjective for "extinct" or "forgotten about".