The misleading indication as to the native land of an animal—due to the name commonly applied to it—is remarkable in the case of the guinea-pig. Though the guinea-fowl is correctly so called, since it comes from the Guinea Coast of Africa, the guinea-pig has nothing to do with that coast, but comes from South America! It is not a pig, but a rodent, and it does not come from Guinea. It appears that the ships of the “Guinea merchants” of this country established trading relations with South American ports, and hence the little “pig” (Shakespeare calls the hedgehog “hedge-pig”) which they brought home was called a “guinea-pig,” just as the big “cock” imported by Turkey merchants was called a “Turkey-cock.” The guinea-pig suffers other “indignities of appellation.” The Germans call him _Meerschweinchen_, that is, “little sea-pig.” Apparently “sea” pig, because he was brought over the sea. But this leads to unjustifiable suggestions as to the guinea-pig’s character. For the Germans call the porpoise _Meerschwein_, which would seem to mean “pig of the sea”; and those imperfectly acquainted with the German language have been known to take allusions made by German writers to the former animal as intended to apply to the young of the latter. Thus one reads in an English medical book of a number of “young porpoises” being fed upon carrots when it was really “guinea-pigs” which consumed this nutriment. The German physiologists, who often make use of guinea-pigs in their investigations, now call them _Cobayas_, so as to avoid any further misunderstanding. The French word for a porpoise, _marsouin_, is a corruption of the German name _Meerschwein_.