55 
Sia Words, 
HEN people wish to be sarcastic on the subject of Natural 
History, they usually fall foul of what they consider the 
unmeaning Latin names by which plants or insects are known 
to the scientific world. They speak with scorn of those 
‘¢ Whe .A//iwm call their onions and their leeks,”’ 
and ask to be told whether a Peacock Butterfly is any the better 
for being designated by the high-sounding title of Vanessa Jo. 
They will not stop and let you show them that the names—to 
them unmeaning—are, in many cases, highly significant and 
appropriate; they ignore the advantage of having an object 
named in a language which is universally known, and by which 
a naturalist in one quarter of the world would recognise a plant 
or an animal found in another, and fall back on the remark that 
they shall call a Buttercup a Buttercup to the end of their days, 
Now, it must not be supposed that we have any sympathy with 
those who pedantically use scientific terms for the purpose of 
showing off their own knowledge—which is probably very 
superficial—and of astonishing their listeners. No one but a 
snob—for there are snobs even among professed naturalists, 
although Mr. Thackray omitted them from his book on the genus 
—would speak of natural objects by their scientific names to any 
but those who were at least as fully able as himself to comprehend 
them; but we are anxious to show that these ‘‘hard words,” 
after all, have a meaning, and to explain this meaning by aid of 
a few examples is the object of this paper. It will contain 
nothing new: and those of our readers who already understand 
the Latin names of plants may pass it over. 
Far be it from us to underrate the value, the beauty, or the 
interest, of our English names. What can be prettier, more 
appropriate, or more poetical, than the name Daisy, or Daye’s 
eye ?—that favourite of Chaucer, who says, 
‘‘That above all flowris in the mede 
Then love I most these fiowris white and rede, 
Such that men callin daisies in our towne,” 
