183 



writer in the Analyst, concerning the nidification of the Rose Muflin (Afedula ro- 

 sea J.* In an amusing article on this species, in No. IV., vol 1, p. 258, the writer 

 refers to the assertion made by Selby and Mudie, that the nest is sometimes found 

 with two openings, and proceeds to disprove this by reasoning. I am happy to be 

 able to bring forward an instance proving the truth of the assertion, as stated by 

 the former of the two eminent Ornithologists just mentioned : — " In one of your 

 former letters (says Selby) you ask if I ever saw the nest of the Longtailed Tit 

 furnished with two holes or entrances ; two such instances I have met with in my 

 own plantations ; and in each, when the bird was sitting upon her eggs or callow 

 young, the tip of the tail generally protruded beyond the upper or rather hinder 

 orifice. One of these nests was kept for some time, but the access of moths 

 obliged me to consign it to the flames." This interesting fact is an additional in- 

 stance to the many already on record, of the danger of reasoning from mere nega- 

 tive evidence or preconceived notions, instead of from actual observation ; the for- 

 mer is a foundation of sand, the latter of rock. 



I shall conclude this miscellaneous communication by expressing my pleasure 

 at seeing the zeal and success with which the principles of ornithological nomen- 

 clature, as explained in Nos. XII. and XIV. of The Analyst, have been brought 

 into practice in The Naturalist : and I hope that the barbarous and unscientific 

 mode of naming birds adopted by Bewick, and other authors of the old school, with 

 all errors of science, however high the authority to uphold them, will sooner or 

 later be buried in oblivion. And, let me ask, is it not quite as easy and much more 

 satisfactory to call the Accentor modularis, Hedge Dunnock than Hedge Sparrow, 

 the Merula vulgaris, Garden Ouzel instead of Black Bird, and the Sylvia melo- 

 dia Yollow Treeling instead of Yellow Wren ?-f- 



There never has been, and perhaps never will be, a new discovery, without 

 exciting at the outset some degree of opposition, arising sometimes from igno- 

 rance, prejudice, self-interest, and indifference. The present subject seems, how- 

 ever, to have pretty nearly overcome all these obstacles ; and although (as Bell 

 truly says in his beautiful work on British Quadrupeds, p. 146,) often much under- 

 rated, terminology now receives its due share of attention. Agreeing, as I do, with 

 a zoological writer of the present day in the opinion that " incalculable benefit 



* Longtailed Tit, and Parus cavdatus of old writers. 



•f I perceive, at page 34, that Mr. Blyth objects to the generic name, Treeling, which 

 I have adopted for the genus Silvia, and proposes " Pettychaps," which Yorkshiremen, 

 when they hear, generally turn into Prettychaps. This name is not euphoneous enough for 

 so handsome and familiar a bird. If adopted at all, it should be Petty chap, (See Shaw's 

 Gen. Zool.J, similar to Redwing, Longshank, Thicknee, which we do not call Redwings, 

 Longshanks, Thicknees. According to Rennie, (see Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, No. 

 33, p. 43), these birds are called, in Scotland, Bushet Leddy, on account of their elegant ap- 

 pearance. 



