216 BRITISH BIRDS. 



The wings are shorter — those of the few specmiens I have 

 been able to measure bemg only 60-63 mm. Flanks very 

 brown. 



This is the Scottish form^ which breeds in Strathspey. 

 The few examples which have been observed in south and 

 east England were apparently stragglers from the 

 Continent. 



the gender of adjectival names, we have to alter it again and 

 again, and different spellings are thus inevitable. As a rule, 

 the knowledge of a schoolboy is sufficient to know the gender of 

 geuei-ic names, but nevertheless ornithologists do not always 

 agree. Every scholar will know that " Nucifraga" (meaning 

 the Nutcracker) is masculine, yet ornithologists have always 

 treated it as feminine. Halcyon is undoubtedly feminine 

 (Halcyone was the faithful wife of Ceyx, and was transformed 

 into a Kingfisher), yet in the " Catalogue of Birds " it has become 

 masculine, and so it has been treated since in most writings. 

 The Creek word " Ammomanes " is masculine, yet among 

 ornithologists it is feminine. I maintain that there is altogether 

 little sense in considering a specific name as an adjective of the 

 generic name. " A name is only a name, and need not necessarily 

 have any meaning." Stability in names is of greater importance 

 than grammatical exactness. The custom of " correcting " 

 names leads to inconsistency and oscillation. {Cf. Novitates 

 Zoologicae, 1907, p. 338.) If we never alter the spelling of sj)ecific 

 names we make a wide step towards stability. Nor am I the 

 only person or the first author who refused to alter the 

 gender of names. Dyar, in his great work on American 

 Lepidoptera. has not altered it ; Staudinger, in his " Catalogue," 

 has not always done it; Kothschild and Jordan, in their mono- 

 graphic works on lepidoptera, have never done it ; and in many 

 single instances authors have forgotten to do it ! 



Dr. Sclater says that " Latin has been universally adopted 

 as the language of science." But surely nowadays hardly 

 anybody writes m Latin ; and it is for scientific persons of far 

 greater importance to understand German, French, and English 

 than Latin. The only relict from the times when Latin was the 

 language of science is that some authors still publish a Latin 

 diagnosis when "describing" a new species. I myself have mostly 

 done so, and given long Latin diagnoses, until the editor of a 

 periodical altered my correct Latin into incorrect Latin. Many 

 prolific species-mongers have never written a Latin diagnosis 

 in their lives. There is a danger in Latin diagnoses. Many 

 writers are so little accustomed to that language, and know so 

 few words, that they give short and insufficient diagnoses. In 



