536 AMPELID.E. 



Scliwenckfeld, who, in 1603, thus rendered the common 

 German name of the bird — Seidenschwanz (Silktail), just as 

 Lister subsequently did, when he had occasion to give it an 

 EngHsh appeUation. Bomhyc'dla was not used in a generic 

 sense, as has been supposed, by Brisson, that author leaving 

 it in his " Genus Turdinum." In 1815, Bernhard Meyer 

 invented the term Bombycipliora (Silk-bearer), which in the 

 same year Temminck through accident or ignorance converted 

 into the nonsensical Bomhycivora (Silk-eater or, to put the 

 most favourable interpretation on it. Moth-eater). But 

 Gesner's epithet " Bohemicus " demands further attention. 

 He so translated the German " Behemle " or " Beemerle " * — 

 names by which, he was told, some such bird was known 

 near Nurenberg, adding that a small kind of Thrush was 

 also so called. The connexion of Bohemia therefore with 

 this species merely rests on popular belief, and every one 

 must know cases of animals' names in which such belief is 

 altogether mistaken. Mr. Johns (British Birds in their 

 Haunts, p. 161) has the ingenious suggestion that the bird 

 may have been called Bohemian, because in its habits it 

 resembles " the wandering tribes of gipsies, who were for- 

 merly called indifferently Egyptians and Bohemians." But 

 the first application of the epithet to the Waxwing was un- 

 doubtedly German in its origin, and there is no proof of 

 gipsies having been anciently called Bohemians or anything 

 like it in that language. The liberty which many writers 

 have taken with the Linnsean specific name, writing 

 "garrula" for " Garridus,'" and thus turning a substantive 

 which is in some degree appropriate into an adjective which 

 is not, is also to be condemned. 



There are two other well-marked species of the genus 

 Ampelis. One, the A. phcenico'ptera of Japan and south- 

 eastern Siberia, is easily distinguished by the red tips of its 

 remiges and rectrices, while at the same time it wants the 



* The brothers Grimm give other forms of the word, namely, Belieimlein, 

 Behaml, Bohemle, and Bomerle (Deutsches Worterbuch, i. 1332) ; and Dr. 

 Sanders adds B'Okmlein, Bdheimle{in) and Bohmc (Worterbuch der Deutschen 

 Sprache, i. p. 184). 



