(50 TENANTS OF AN OLD FARM. 



pcllecl to receive : Angelina Seraphima Celestiana Jane- 

 Eliza Brown ! In sooth, scientific nomenclature is not 

 tlie greatest offender in the matter of long and sound- 

 ing titles." 



" Where do the naturalists get their names ?" asked 

 Abb}-, after heartily enjoying my sally, which her ex- 

 perience with the names of her school-children enabled 

 her to fully appreciate. 



"The rule is to derive the generic name from the 

 Greek, and the specific name from the Latin, or to con- 

 vert the former into a Greek form and Latinize the 

 latter. It is further the custom, which is not, how- 

 ever, invariable, to construct the names from some 

 marked characteristic of the animal. Take, for ex- 

 ample, our spider friend Argiope riparia. The generic 

 name is taken from mythology, after a fancy that long 

 prevailed among naturalists, and which is especially 

 marked in the science of astronomy, as you will see 

 by x'ecalling the names of the planets. Argiope 

 (ApyioTC?/) was a Greek nymph, and the fancy of tlie 

 araneologist who created the genus led him to give her 

 name to it. The specific name riparia was given by 

 Ilentz to our fine species, because he frequently found 

 the creature along the banks of streams, and riparia is 

 the Latin adjective that describes this fact. In the 

 same way the other beautiful species was named 

 Argiope, of course, because she belongs to the same 

 gens, and fasciata (Latin for handed) because of the 

 black bands or stripes laid over her silvery abdomen, 



" Take the next example on our list ; the scientific 



