SCIENTIFIC TERMS AND POPULAR NAMES. 
To comprehend fully the scientific terms used in 
our descriptions, and the popular names of the objects 
of which we treat, is of the first importance, in order 
that there may be no confusion of names, and that the 
reader may clearly understand the subject before him. 
The common or popular name which a writer in this 
State may give in his description of a specimen or 
object in Natural History, would be readily understood 
in his own County or neighborhood; but in an 
adjoining County or State the object may be known 
by a very different name, and the people be misled 
by the description.. For example: an intelligent 
traveller on a visit to Sullivan’s Island, enquired the 
name of a venomous looking reptile, which he saw 
running along the rail of a fence, and he was told that 
it was a “Salamander.” Passing through Georgia a 
few weeks after, he was invited by a planter to visit 
his fields, where the laborers were engaged in clear- 
ing and burning the pines preparatory to thehnexct 
year’s crop. During the walk he observed that 
several animals had just been caught escaping from 
the burning heaps of wood, and which, though resem- 
bling the well known forms of the tortoise or terra- 
pin, were yet dissimilar from any he had ever seen. 
The farmer told him they were called Salamanders or 
Gophers. Soon after, visiting an orange grove in 
