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class. In the second part of the above rule, I contend that no name which is not 

 faulty, should be changed, even for one more comprehensive ; and this, the very 

 nature of nomina adulatoria* would prevent ; still I maintain that it is fair and 

 legitimate that such names as these should, on proper occasions, be allowed. I am 

 borne out in this proposition by the opinion of Mr. Westwood, in a clever paper 

 of his, which, singularly enough, appeared in Loudon's Magazine of Natural 

 History, contemporaneously with mine upon nearly the same subject. As one 

 reason against changing such names, he mentions " the injustice done thereby to 

 the original describer of the species, whose name is thus supplanted :" and, further, 

 he says with truth, " the custom of forming specific names from the name of the 

 captor or possessor of a new species, although condemned as a fault by a recent 

 anonymous writer, has been sanctioned by every Naturalist since the days of Lin- 

 neus — it is an honourable testimony of the opinion of fellow labourers." I must 

 confess that I may appear to be not altogether an uninterested advocate of this 

 practice, even " in prospectu" (vide, also, Curtis's British Entomology, No. 110, 

 p. 441) ; but, nevertheless, I have always maintained the same opinion, and I 

 have read as yet no arguments likely to induce me to change it ; " nor think it not 

 immodesty" that, for the present, I agree on this point with Mr. Westwood, and 

 I am glad to find that it is not the only one connected with the general subject I 

 am investigating in which our views coincide. 



But I must proceed, " unde a quo abi redeo," and I will commence my ob- 

 servations with candidly stating my opinion that it will be a happy day for nomen- 

 clature when English names are totally abolished. It maybe all very well for 

 unscientific persons to retain, pro tempore, the local names, which are most of 

 them varied in different parts of the country : thus the Missel Thrush, for in- 

 stance, of one place, is the Stormcock of another: but we hope the rapid 

 progression of knowledge, which has of late years taken place, will continue to 

 be yet more extensively, if not universally, diffused, and render it quite as easy for 

 those who possess even a small stock of erudition, to call a bird, or an insect, or a 

 plant by its scientific and Latin name, as by its vulgar one. Here we need not 

 speculate : we have only to look at what has already taken place. We are 

 speaking now of birds ; but let us argue more philosophorum " from like to like." 

 Have not the coleoptera almost exclusively Latin names, not one in a hundred 

 being degraded by a vulgar, or what might, with more propriety of language 

 than the word is usually connected with, be called a " trivial" name ?f 



* With regard to the mode of forming these names, the Latinity of the middle ages, as 

 Mr. "Westwood observes, must be employed ; but this is so evident, that I am surprised 

 at his having thought it necessary to argue this question, or mention it at all. ■ 



f As I am chiefly speaking of British birds, it would be hardly fair to use the argument 

 which might be derived from considering the countless number of foreign species, which 

 might, perhaps not quite with equal justice, but certainly with some shew of reason, demand 

 VOL. i. 2f 



