Blackcap and Gar den- War bier. 51 



Keeper of the Museum, we are almost sure, on 

 any sunny day, to hear both Blackcap and 

 Garden-warbler, and with a little pains and 

 patience, to see them both. These two (for a 

 wonder) take their scientific names from the 

 characteristics by which sensible English folk 

 have thought best to name them ; the Blackcap 

 being Sylvia atracapilla, and the Garden-warbler 

 Sylvia hortensis. Mr. Ruskin says, in that 

 delicious fragment of his about birds, called 

 Love's Meinie^ that all birds should be named on 

 this principle ; and indeed if they had only to 

 discharge the duty which many of our English 

 names perform so well, viz. that of letting English 

 people know of what bird we are talking, his plan 

 would be an excellent one. Unluckily, Orni- 

 thology is a science, and a science which embraces 

 all the birds in the world ; and we must have some 

 means of knowing for certain that we shall be 

 understood of all the world when we mention a 

 bird's name. This necessity is well illustrated in 

 the case of the warblers. So many kinds of them 

 are there, belonging to all our three groups, in 



Europe alone, not to speak of other parts of the 



E 2 



