E. HARTERT : BRITISH PECULIAR FORMS. 217 



13. — Aegithalos caudatus rosea (Blytli). 



British Long-tailed Titmouse. 



Mecistura rosea Blyth, in White's "Selborne," p. Ill 

 (1836— England). 



The British Long-tailed Tit differs at a g-lance from 

 A. caudatus caudatus of N. and E. Europe in having a broad 

 black band on the sides of the head, in having- shorter 

 body-feathers, etc. It is, however, closely allied to A. 

 caudatus europaea of southern and western Middle-Europe, 

 of which it may be called an extreme form, differing- only 

 in having- a shorter wing- and invariably a wide black 

 stripe on the sides of the head, while A. c. europaea 

 varies from a pure white head to a black-striped variety. 



A. c. rosea is the only form breeding- in Great Britain 

 and Ireland, but it is probably not quite restricted to the 

 British Isles, as specimens from the Pyrenees seem to me 

 absolutely indistinguishable. The true A. caudatus caudatus 

 straggles occasionally into Great Britain, but very rarely. 



such cases it Avould be far better if they wrote in the English, 

 German, or French — languages, which ai-e and must be understood 

 as well as Latin by anyone who claims to be a scientific orni- 

 thologist. Our nomenclature even is not Latin any longer. Can 

 one say that ugly hybrid names like rufiguster, leucocapiUus, etc., 

 or the many dedication names in use (for example, haiisi, 

 mobiusi, niohammed-ben-abdullah, grum-grzimailoi, tschitscherini), 

 or names like timrit^li, urubitinga, chimacJiima, chiriri, chiripepe, 

 ctirucui, chii, jacutinga, jacupeba, zabele, boraquira, guira-yacu, 

 irupero, jacquacai, gtdrayacii, loreto-yacuensis, jaia, fanny, and 

 so on, or the many awful names of P. L. S. Miiller, or the 

 nonsense-names of some coleopterists and lepidopterists, are 

 Latin? We are not nowadays following any pedantic rules 

 imposed on natural science by philologists ; but we study Nature 

 itself, unfettered by philology, and use "nomenclature" only 

 as a means to have names for our objects. It is very regrettable 

 that so many of these names have been made without knowledge 

 of, or without regard to, grammar and classical feeling ; but 

 we must not alter them, and have to adopt them, even if they 

 shock our classical nerves, and they must remain as mementoes 

 of the recklessness or stupidity of their creators. 



