57 



in Mr. Selby's meritorious British Ornithology are very aptly and euphoniously 

 designated. Yet this author is often extremely careless about the names of his 

 land birds, though he seems to prefer the appellation " warbler" for the Fauvet 

 genus. For my own part, I much object to " warbler" as a generic name at all : 

 firstly, from its having been so very extensively applied by writers in quite a tech- 

 nical sense ; and secondly, because it appears invidious to term exclusively any 

 particular genus of song birds by an appellation of such very general import. 

 When, however, we find such a non-exclusive term actually applied to birds that 

 do not warble, and by those, too, who profess to reform the nomenclature, it be- 

 comes still more inapplicable. Who, for instance, can be expected to adopt 

 the name " Hedge Warbler"* for a bird that neither warbles nor habitually fre- 

 quents hedges ? Yet such an appellation is proposed, by Mr. Neville Wood, for 

 the Sylvia loquax, a species which might be aptly designated the Dark- 

 legged Petty chaps ; a name which is not liable to any such objections. Surely we 

 ought to discriminate between improvement and alteration, and allow no newly- 

 coined names to pass muster which are so very obviously inappropriate. In scien- 

 tific nomenclature, the Whitebreast has been variously denominated by different 

 authors. It is the Motacilla curruca, and also the M. dermetorum of Linneus ; 

 the Curruca garrula of Brisson and Selby; the C. sylviella of Dr. Fleming; it 

 is the Sylvia ( Curruca ) curruca of Mr. Jenyns, the S. curruca of Latham 

 and Temminck, and also the S. dermetorum of the former. Buffon calls it La 

 Fauvette Babillard, and Temminck Becfin babillard; Babillard is also Mr. 

 Rennie's name for it, in Montagu's Dictionary. It is the Klapper Grasmiicke 

 of the German, Meyer, and the Bianchetto of the Italians. Its more popular 

 name among the Germans signifies " Little Miller." 



* A. name, too, which is not in the slightest degree the less objectionable from its having 

 been applied, by many writers, to the Accentor modularis. 



VOL. I. 



