34 



meaning is to attach to the word " sparrow," if it is to signify a particular form 

 among the feathered race, surely those species ought alone to be called sparroiv 

 which exhibit the characters briefly denoted under that name. To apply it to 

 birds of other form occasions only unnecessary confusion. If a new species were 



to be denominated sparrow, we should, of course, expect it to pertain to 



the genus Passer ; and why, therefore, do some naturalists persist in using erro- 

 neous appellations, merely because, in some districts, they happen to be popular ? 

 I say some districts only, because there are really very few names which are in 

 general use throughout the country ; consequently a classical and systematic nomen- 

 clature is doubly needed. In the south of England, for instance, what terms appear 

 to be more universally accepted than Goldfinch, Tomtit, and Kingfisher ? Yet 

 the first applies, in Yorkshire, to the Yellow Bunting, the second, in the same 

 county, to the common Wren, and the third, in Sutherlandshire, invariably 

 denotes the Dipper. Not long ago, I heard a ludicrous dispute between a 

 Yorkshireman and a native of Surrey, respecting which bird was the " Tomtit," 

 the former insisting that the southron's Tomtit meant the Blue-cap ! What 

 we in Surrey term the Goldfinch, is, in Yorkshire, better known as the Thistle- 

 finch ; in Suffolk and Norfolk it is as popularly designated King Harry, and in 

 Scotland it is the Gooldie, or Gould-speuk, of our northern neighbours. But 

 while I advocate a well-digested and temperate reformation of the vernacular names 

 to objects of Natural History, let me by no means be understood to adopt every 

 ill-sounding name which some nomenclators, in their great enthusiasm, have 

 proposed. At some future time I shall probably take the subject in hand myself, 

 and hope that whatever new names I shall then have to offer, will not only possess 

 the merit of propriety and exclusiveness of application, but will, also, not offend 

 the more fastidious, by their want of euphony. It will, also, be my object to 

 introduce as few new terms as possible, as I see no occasion for substituting 

 " Goldwing" for Siskin, as the vernacular for Carduelis, " Treeling" for Petty- 

 chaps, &c, as some have done. 



But to return to what in Surrey is called the Reed-^arrow. Our naturalists 

 are mistaken in supposing that people in general (that is to say, unscientific ob- 

 servers of discrimination) ordinarily confuse, as professed naturalists have done,* 

 the Sedge Reedling with the Reed Bunting. I have generally found that both 

 birds were well known, and their respective notes also. I believe they will be 

 found everywhere to be distinguished by separate names, and in Surrey the Reed 

 Bunting is called " Blackheaded Bunting ;" as good a name, without reference to 

 its foreign congeners, as the more exclusive one now judiciously employed by all 

 our naturalists. 



The Fen Reedling, however, about which the present paper is professed to be 



" Witness the various accounts of the Reed Bunting's song. 



