Laudator Temporis Acti

The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary under cryptozoic, adj.², is

1889 A. DENDY in Victorian Naturalist 5 131 To these light-abhorring animals, which live concealed under logs and stones and beneath the dead bark of trees, and venture forth from their hiding places, if at all, only at night or under exceptional circumstances, it will be convenient to give a distinct name indicative of their peculiar habitat, and..I can find no more suitable name than 'Cryptozoic', or living hidden.

The citation is incorrect. The quotation appears in Vol. VI, not V, of The Victorian Naturalist, more precisely in Vol. VI, No. 8 (December, 1889), whole No. 72. A fuller quotation is interesting as showing how Arthur Dendy coined the word:

Now to these light-abhorring animals, which live concealed under logs and stones and beneath the dead bark of trees, and venture forth from their hiding places, if at all, only at night or under exceptional circumstances, it will be convenient to give a distinct name indicative of their peculiar habitat, and though I have carefully studied the Greek dictionary I can find no more suitable term than "Cryptozoic," or living hidden, which, though by no means perfect, I think fairly expresses my meaning. By the cryptozoic fauna, then, I mean all that assemblage of animals which is found living habitually under logs and stones and under the rotten bark of trees. I had thought of including under the term also burrowing animals such as the mole and the earthworm, but decided finally that it was better not to do so. The line must be drawn somewhere, and if we draw it as I propose I think we shall circumscribe a fairly distinct and definite group of animals.

English is much more productive of crypto- compounds than Greek ever was.

I know some "light-abhorring" members of the species Homo sapiens who "venture forth from their hiding places, if at all, only at night or under exceptional circumstances."

One could apply Ovid's words (Tristia 3.4.25) to the cryptozoic fauna:

He who hid well, lived well. (bene qui latuit bene vixit.)

Related posts:

• Turba Lucifugarum, or The Tribe of Daylight-Shunners
• Turba Lucifugarum
• Daylight-Shunners