BEMABKS ON THE USE OF NAMES. 15 



y ; c and g hard or soft as they would be in English, and most other consonants as 

 in English, nearly or exactly. » 



III. The Roman Method. This way of speaking Latin, if practicable, is obviously 

 preferable ; and it is believed that a close approximation to Latin orthoepy is fea- 

 sible. " The world over, nearly all the Latin grammarians of the last quarter of a 

 centur}^ have urged a return to first principles. The Latin has rights of its own, 

 and a demonstrated pronunciation which should be respected." * The credit of lead- 

 ing this reform in America has been ascribed to the late Professor S. S. Ilaldeman, 

 of the Universit}' of Penns\lvania, whose "Elements of Latin Pronunciation" was 

 published at Philadelphia in 1851. 



Nevertheless, the practicability of introducing such radical reform among natural- 

 ists, to most of whom the writing and speaking of classical words is but an incident 

 of their scientific studies, may be seriously doubted, however desirable it is to do 

 so. We question whether ornithologists, of this generation at least, can be induced 

 to sa}' KikcTonia., Kirlce., and Pihicorwus, or Chicheronia^i Ghirche., and Pichicorvus for 

 Ciceronia., Circe., and Pictco7-vus, or wirraynce for virens. It ma}' be most judicious 

 at present, and best on the whole, to pave the way for the final consummation by 

 carr3ing into practice the man}^ points on which scholars agree, without insisting 

 upon the extremes respecting which diversit}' of good authorit}' is admitted. 



Upon such understanding we oflTer, for pronouncing the Latin names of North 

 American birds, a scheme which insists upon the Roman sounds of the vowels and 

 diphthongs, but yields the point in the disputed cases of certain consonants ; conced- 

 ing, for example, that c may remain soft before e, ^, and y, and that v need not be 

 turned into w. We do not profess to go into the subtleties, or even all the niceties 

 of Latin orthoepy. Much of the end we have in view will be attained, if we can 

 succeed in preventing those barbarisms and vulgarisms which constantly come from 

 the lips of some persons of great accomplishment in the science of ornithology. 

 Having ourselves heard Oh-nanth and Fully-gewler for (Enanthe and FuUgula, we 

 need not affect to conceal our belief that some ornithologists ma}'' profitably look a 

 little further into the matter than they appear to have hitherto done. 



Vowels. 

 The difference between a "long" and a "short" vowel is essentially one of 

 quantity only, not of qualit}- : it is actualh' the prolongation of a sound, not neces- 

 sarily involving a difference in sound. Thus, if we dwell never so long on the 

 " short" a of fat, it does not convert the sound of that letter into that heard in the 

 "long" a of fate. The phonetic quality of a vowel should therefore be distin- 

 guished from its prosodiac quantity. Practically, however, no such discrimination 

 is to be made in the case of the Latin vowels. We only know them as " long" or 

 "short;" we determine their quantity by prosodiac rules, and make their quality 



* W. G. Richardson on Latin Pronunciation : In Report of the Commissioner of Education for 

 1876. 8vo, Wasliington, 1878. p. 484. 



