118 CORRESPONDENCE. 



No. XIV. of The Analyst, and shall set the reviewer right on two 

 or three points which he has misunderstood. He says — " The next 

 paper which arrests our attention is, * The Birds of Britain, syste- 

 matically arranged.' Now, we think that few of the editorial 

 fraternity will be able either to comprehend, or appreciate, this ar- 

 ticle, and, therefore, a few observations on the principles it upholds 

 may not be misplaced. The plan of giving to each genus an Eng- 

 lish generic name, originated, we believe, with Neville Wood, Esq. 

 in No X. of The Analyst ; and this is one of the chief principles on 

 ■which the present list is founded." 1 would beg leave to remark 

 that, so far from the plan above alluded to belonging to Mr. Neville 

 Wood, it has been acted on, with more or less success, by every 

 ornithologist since Willughby. Stevens* and Mudie are particularly 

 exact in this point; most authors, however, make this the rule, 

 though all have more or less exceptions. Temminck, Lesson, and 

 Vieillot among the French, may be mentioned as scrupulous adhe- 

 rents to the rule. I believe, however, that I was the first who put 

 it fully in practice, as may be seen by referring to Loudon's Maga- 

 zine of Natural History, vol. vii., p. 593, and vol. viii., p. 110, p. 

 225, &c. The reviewer continues — " To one (comparatively unim- 

 portant) particular, however, we object, and that is the substituting 

 i for y in many of the Latin names ; as Silvia, Budites, Coridalla, 

 Ortix, &c." The three last are not " Latin names," but Greek ; 

 however, to the point. The reviewer evidently is not conversant 

 with the writings of antiquity, or he would have known that Ro- 

 man authors themselves wrote the first mentioned word with an i 

 and not a y. We have likewise Ainsworth's authority, and in John- 

 son's Dictionary he will likewise find — " Sylvan, better Silvan" 

 In the remaining three instances the letter which the reviewer 

 would render y is, in Greek, v ; and why i should not represent the 

 Greek v as well as a ^ the reviewer must himself explain. Y is 

 nothing but an i final, similar to the <r and s in Greek, and many 

 consonants in Hebrew ; and why we should stick a ^nal letter in 

 the middle I do not know. The Greek <t> is frequently rendered in 

 English by ph, which is still more absurd, as f exactly corresponds 

 to the Greek letter. With regard to Cwail and Quail, I have not 

 time to discuss it now, and in the mean time would refer the re- 

 viewer to a little work by IMr. Latham, entitled A Grammatical 

 Sketch of the Greek Language. The reason for omitting the k in 



• Shaw's General Zoology, 14 vols. 8vo., 1800—1826. The eight first vols. 

 of this work were by Shaw, but on the decease of that author, it was con- 

 tinued by Stevens. 



