E. HARTERT : BRITISH PECULIAR FORMS. 215 



with dull black crowns, differs very conspicuously from 

 the Scandinavian Parus ah'icapillus horealis, as well as 

 from the Alpine P. a. movianus, but it is closely allied to 

 P. atricapillus rhenanus, from which it only differs in its 

 smaller size and more brownish, darker upper surface. 

 As Mr. Rothschild has fully explained the differences of 

 P. a. kleitischmidti and P. palustris dresseri (antea, p. 44), 

 I need not rej)eat them here. This bird is evidently 

 stationary all the year round, and it is to be hoped that 

 British ornithologists will pay more attention to it. Nest 

 and egg's, with parent birds, have been taken near 

 Tunbridge Wells and St. Leonards. 



12. — Parus cristatus scotica (Prazakj."^ 



Scottish Crested Titmouse. 



Lojphophanes cristatus scotica Prazak, "Journ. f. Orn.," 

 1897, p. 347 (Scotland). 



Differs from Parus cristatus cristatus of north and east 

 EurojDe, and from P. cristatus mitratus from Central Europe, 

 by its much darker, more olive-brownish ujjper surface. 



* In a footnote to his ai'ticle on the "supposed new British 

 Tit" (antea, p. 23), Dr. Sclater says: " Dr. Hartert writes the 

 subspecific name (of the Scottish Crested Tit) as "scotica," 

 but I cannot agree to use false concords. Latin having been 

 universally adopted as the language of science, we are bound . . . 

 to follow the ordinary rules of its grammar." To those who have 

 followed the apparently endless controversies on nomencla.ture 

 of the last twenty years this note is perfectly clear, but to 

 uninitiated readers it will not be so. I must, in their interest, 

 explain that / did not choose to ivrite the name as " scotica," but 

 that its author spelt it thus. It is true that it has been the 

 custom to bring the gender of specific and subspecifi.c names 

 into concord with the generic name, even if the gender of the 

 latter was originally different. From this rule I have so far 

 deviated that I have preserved Ihe original spelling of every name, 

 no matter whether the gender of names with adjectival endings 

 agreed with that of the genus into which they ai-e now placed 

 or not. The aim of all recent efforts in nomenclature is stability, 

 and stability in nomenclature can only be effected if we allow 

 no alterations in the spelling of names. If we agree to alter 



