VI PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



protest here against the barbarous and other objectionable names 

 (sometimes at variance with good taste and even with decency) 

 that have been introduced into science such, for example, 

 as Batty ghur, Butzkopf, Agamachtschich, Know-nothing, Stuff, 

 Jehovah, Cherubim ! or such idiotic names, or rather sounds, as 

 Toi-toi, Sing-sing, Giu, Yama-mai, and many others. Indecent 

 names need not be further alluded to. Under the law of priority 

 it is assumed that any name must be retained. Surely such a 

 law has its duties as well as its rights. Why should any name 

 be sanctioned that shocks the good taste or feeling of all but the 

 utterly hopeless ? This law of priority, too, has turned out to be, 

 as A. Agassiz expresses it, " a mere shuffling of names." It was 

 to have blessed us with a uniform nomenclature ; but, under its 

 shelter, names familiar to us for a generation or more are swept 

 away in favour of others published, in some obscure or forgotten 

 work, one or two or twenty years earlier. Were this law to be 

 carried out amongst insects, "a hopeless state of embarrassment " 

 would be the result. In these pages, in the few instances (chiefly 

 amongst birds) where such changes have been made, I have ad- 

 hered to the familiar name. 



I am indebted to my friend Mr. J. W. Dunning, M.A., of 

 Lincoln's Inn, for a long list of errors, in the first edition, in the 

 generic and family names. I have profited by his suggestions in 

 many instances; but, whilst admitting the correct form of the 

 rest, I do not feel quite justified, in a work of this sort, in altering 

 those which have received the sanction, in many cases, of long 

 usage, or have been generally acquiesced in, and which would 



