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only never used, but also where it is entirely unknown : why, then, should we 

 persist in attempting to diffuse a name conveying an idea which we ourselves 

 allow to be erroneous ? 



The same remarks will apply to the other names. Thus, in my intercourse 

 with the peasantry, I have found the appropriate name, Dunnoc, to be quite as 

 common as the erroneous one Hedge Sparrow : indeed, I am quite surprised Mr. 

 Swainson should advocate the latter, which has long ago been abandoned by all 

 writers on the British Fauna. Tit-mouse is, also, generally abandoned in all our 

 works, from the magnificent production of Gould on The Birds of Europe, to 

 Miss Taylor's little volume, The Boy and the Birds. From what quarter Mr. 

 S. obtained the strange name Longtailed Mag, I really cannot tell ; but if it is in 

 use in any part of the island, why should our author be at pains to bring into 

 notice obscure names, at the expense of the appropriate names in more general 

 use ? I have been accustomed to hear this bird called by the name Longtailed 

 Tit, but as it has lately been removed from the genus Tit, Mr. Blyth has pro- 

 posed the very appropriate name, Rose Mufflin. Mr. S. tells us that the " Tit 

 Lark is a warbler." What does he mean by this ? Does he mean to say that it 

 is a songster ? or does he intend to denote some particular genus ? And if the lat- 

 ter which genus is intended ? For the name Warbler has, at various times, been 

 used to denote the Willet (Silvia), the Fauvet (Ficedula), the Kinglet (Regu- 

 lusj, the Whinlin (Melizophilus), &c, &c. ; but, at all events, Mr. S. is wrong, 

 for the Anthus pratensis is in the genus Pipit. If Mr. S. makes such mistakes 

 as these with regard to British birds, how can his readers rely on his authority as 

 to foreign species ? " Some few of these," continues Mr. S., " in systematic 

 works upon our native Ornithology, where the most expressive English names are 

 inserted, may be altered. The Goatsucker may be called the Nightjar ; the 

 Hedge Sparrow, Flitiving, which will be rather better than Shufiiewing ; and so 

 on." There is, however, no * alteration" in writing Nightjar, instead of Goat- 

 sucker ; this is merely a choice between two names equally well known ; but as 

 these names are only intended for the " mass of mankind," it is of course of little 

 importance which we adopt ; indeed it may be doubted whether the erroneous 

 name is not to be preferred ! With regard to the Accentor modularis, why 

 should Mr. S. be at the pains to invent a new name, when there is one quite un- 

 objectionable in common use ? I shall not pretend to answer this question ; but 

 at all events I may assert that his proposing the new name, Flitwing, would have 

 the effect of frightening those averse to innovations, which the adoption of Dunnoc 

 would not. 



The next sentence is founded on the erroneous idea that the new names can be 

 disseminated in a day or a week, and I shall therefore pass it over, with the re- 

 mark that the reformed nomenclature must first be adopted by authors, and all the 

 rest will follow easily; especially as the taste for works on Natural History is yearly 



