86 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



cumstances first procured for it the honour of 

 durability which bids fair to be perpetual, and 

 through what succession of changes has it been 

 maintained. These considerations make us smile 

 at the vain conceits of some of our modern self- 

 styled naturalists. Do they really think, dogmati- 

 cally as they may lay down the law to their own 

 entire satisfaction, that their whimsical combinations 

 will ever be adopted by the people of the country 

 that the old will be displaced to make room for the 

 new ? They are fondly mistaken if they entertain 

 the notion. The name of the favourite and elegant 

 little bird before us no case of lucus a non lu- 

 cendo will ever remain one of the ' old standards ; ' 

 no ' weak invention ' will ever supersede it in the 

 idiom of the nation. The Wagtail will always con- 

 tinue a Wagtail, not only in nature, but also in 

 name." These common, time-honoured names of 

 our British birds he preferred to all others, just as 

 he himself gloried to bear the old title of parson 

 in preference to the more recent appellation of 

 clergyman. 



Many were the literary contributions which he re- 

 ceived while the work was going through the press. 

 Next to those of Richard Alington, there were none 

 which he prized more highly than those of another 

 old friend, Hugh Edwin Strickland, whose sad and 

 untimely death was such a shock to him ; his life 

 was sacrificed to the cause of science, he being 

 killed by a passing train in a railway cutting near 

 Retford, whither he had gone to examine a geologi- 



