496 Mr. Swainsons Reply to his Reviewers. 



troducing this unscientific, and worse than useless English 

 nomenclature, into his 'Birds of Western Africa.' " If Mr. 

 Strickland will again peruse what I wrote in 1836,* he will 

 no where find that I deprecated English names to foreign 

 birds, a practice that originated with Willughby and Ray, 

 and has been continued to the present time. My objections 

 are made not to the use, but to its abuse, — in having, for in- 

 stance, twenty-five different new English names expressive 

 of a parrot, or a woodpecker. But even were it otherwise 

 no "error" is committed, it is only a question of opinion, 

 amenable to no law of science, and with which, as I have 

 before observed, science has nothing to do ; so it cannot be 

 " unscientific." Whether it be " worse than useless " to have 

 an English nomenclature for foreign birds, is another matter 

 of opinion. If the generality of mankind had not thought this 

 plan both useful and convenient, English names would not 

 have spread into general use. I apprehend that people in 

 general would not prefer to call one bird a Gypogeranos in- 

 stead of serpent- eater, another Casmorhynchus instead of bell- 

 bird, or a third Dendrocolaptes instead of creeper. Such ver- 

 nacular names are for the multitude, not for naturalists, who 

 never use them when they wish to be clearly understood. 



The reviewer of my "Muscicapidce" complains that a "care- 

 ful and exact definition" is not given of every genus, and la- 

 ments that there is not " appended a list of all the species 

 that are known." He may with just as much reason com- 

 plain that I have not made it a complete Sy sterna Avium. — 

 Here is a volume with upwards of thirty coloured plates, and 

 256 printed pages, all for six shillings, and yet fault is found 

 with it because it does not contain what would fill two or 

 three other volumes, although the reviewer himself says " it 

 is not one third the price at which many works of no greater 

 scientific value" are published ! The "careful and exact de- 

 finitions" have all been given in my • Classification of Birds; 1 

 and as for a list of all the species, it will require a much abler 

 pen and greater knowledge than I possess, to do it ; and no 

 one, who knows the actual state of descriptive Ornithology, 

 would have made such a remark. 



But these are not all the faults of my poor little volume. — 

 It appears, according to the learned reviewer, that it does not 

 even perform what it professes to do. "Indeed," he conti- 

 nues, " it cannot be considered as a complete synopsis even 

 of the genera, for several important generic forms, (such for 



* Classification of Birds, i. 212. 



