20 THE REV. /. G. WOOD. 



are scattered throughout his writings against the ex- 

 reme looseness with which the terms used in scientific 

 phraseology are often framed. Take, for example, the 

 following, from his " Insects at Home " : 



I really do not like to translate such a word as subapterus, which 

 is a repulsive hybrid between Latin and Greek, and with all 

 respect to the eminent entomologist who first manufactured it 

 ought not to be accepted iri its present form. What, for example, 

 should we think of such words as eightagon, twelvehedron, dreiangle, 

 petitscope, telesseer, insectology, etoilonomy, erdology, and the like ? 

 Yet there is not one of these words which is one whit more ridiculous 

 than subapterus. Should we be allowed to talk, much less write, of 

 a hemiglobe, an egg-positor, a chaudmeter, a baromeasurer, a virful 

 deed, or a megananimous sentiment 1 But, if we are to retain the 

 one word, there can be no reason why we should not employ the 

 others. . . . 



Had the offending entomologist used the word subalatus, or 

 " partly winged," no one could have objected to it, as both words 

 are Latin. Apart from other reasons, it is a prettier-looking word 

 than subapterus, and much easier to say. But when he employs the 

 word sub, which is Latin, as a prefix to the Greek pteron, I do not 

 see that we should be called upon to excoriate our own ears and 

 those of future generations with such an atrocious compound. 



I believe that brown sugar and oysters are considered incom- 

 patible, as is salt with strawberry cream. There is, perhaps, not one 

 in ten thousand who would not feel direfully aggrieved by having 

 any such mixtures forced on him as part of his daily diet. And 

 there is really no more reason for offending our eyes, ears, and mental 

 taste by subapterus, than our mere palates by the above-mentioned 

 mixtures. 



During the whole of his university career my father 

 had studied with the special intention of taking Holy 

 Orders ; but as he had matriculated so unusually early, 

 he was still barely twenty years old when he proceeded to 



