292 LETTERS. 



the spellings " Coal-Tit " and " Redpoll," since these names were so 

 spelt in standard works a good many years before our Magazine came 

 into existence. 



Priority in scientific names is of great importance scientifically, and 

 is fixed by International Rules, but priority in colloquial names is of 

 no zoological importance at all ; and so far as we can see {pace Mr. 

 Harting) there are no rules to govern us, should we turn our hands to 

 correcting the spelling of English names and deciding wiiich form should 

 be adopted. Mr. Bonhote compares the spelling of " Dunlin " without a 

 final " g " to that of " High Holborn " without the initial " H." It 

 is sufficient to point out that the former is the spelling adopted in every 

 standard work on ornithology, with the exception of one work by 

 Professor Newton and Mr. Harting's later edition of his Handbook, 

 though in his earlier works he wrote the word as we do. To drop 

 the '• H " in " Holborn " would be simply a vulgarism for which there 

 is no authority, so that there is no parallel between the two cases — Eds.] 



