jg CoUES, Zaiiie/odia agai>/st Habia. A\ 



gers now referred to Saltator or elsewhere. Habia may or may 

 not be tenable for some such birds ; but obviously it cannot stand 

 for any others ; and consequently, on the principle that "once a 

 synonym always a synonym," or by our rule for the rejection of 

 homonyms, Habia Reich. 1850 falls to the ground, dragging with 

 it the disjecta fnembra of Dr. Stejneger's worstf^-^ 

 According to the admirably lucid ^- 



neger's 'Analecta Ornithologica ' wcr -^ 



even when their author was mistak' 

 thus stated : — 



Genus Zame. 



i^^o.— Habia Reich., Av. Sy: ' 

 I, 1850 ; type Gniraca 



CuviER, 1849 ; nee Agas .aSSiz, 



1846. (iV&iT ^/7/V? Leach, L .^1.^1., in c. -'bY)- 



1851. — Hedymeles Cab., Mus. Hein. i, June, 185 i, p. 152 ; type 

 Loxia ludoviciana Linn. ; nee Hedyme/a Sund., 1846. 



1880. — Zamelodia Coues, Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, V. Apr. 1880, 

 p. 98 ; type Loxia Iiido7>iciana Linn. 



1884. — Habia Stejneger, Auk, Oct. 1884, p. 367, errore. 



1886-95. — Habia, A. O. U. Lists, 1886-95, ^f^'OJ'e, and of mis- 

 led American writers generally since 1S84. 



I gladly avail myself further of the incomparable Stejnegerian 

 method of exposition to state that the species, according to Coues's 

 Key, 2d-4th eds. 1S84-90, p. 389, will stand — -not as Dr. Stej- 

 neger, /. r,, says they will stand — but as: 



244. Zamelodia ludoviciana (Linn.). Rose-breasted Gros- 

 beak. 



245. Zamelodia melanocephala (Swains.). Black-headed 

 Grosbeak. 



Dr. Stejneger's acquirements in Greek etymology seem to have 

 failed him in discussing the meaning of Abia, as the Agassizian 

 emendation of Habia, in 1846. The learned gentleman says that 

 Abia would seem to be derived from a/3ios, in the meaning of 

 ' poor, without food.' He may be glad to be informed that Abia 

 is directly from the Greek d privitive and ^6a, force, power, might, 

 bodily strength, being first introduced in zoology by Dr. W. E. 



6 



