This essay explores terms referring to ‘bird (in general)’ in eastern Indonesian languages and considers the extent to which these systematically label a life-form taxon. All belonging to the Central-Malayo-Polynesian group, the languages reveal four ways in which the general category of ‘bird’ is designated: with (1) a reflex of a Malayo-Polynesian protoform reconstructed as *manuk, (2) a descriptive phrase meaning ‘flying animal’, (3) a term originally referring to a particular kind of bird, and (4) a term apparently denoting a more general category of ‘wild creatures’. While the first pattern is exclusive to languages of Timor and the Moluccas (Esser's ‘Ambon-Timor’ group), reflexes of *manuk are also widespread in languages of central and western Flores and Sumba (Esser's ‘Bima-Sumba’ group), where they occur as a specific term for the domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) and in compound names for a number of other ethno-ornithological folk generics. The implications of the pattern are discussed with reference to evolutionary schemes proposed by Berlin and Brown, and to a recent re-interpretation of the protoform *manuk advanced by Blust.