THE MYRAPETRA. 



283 



Nectarinia. Myrapetra. 



It is much to be regretted that this plan of inventing fanciful 

 names and giving them to newly-discovered species should have 

 been so common a practice among systematic zoologists. I hold 

 that both the generic and specific name of every animal and 

 plant should be intelligible, and refer either to some peculiarity 

 of form, habit, color, or locality. There is no great difficulty in 

 doing so. Greek is a language that affords an inexhaustible sup- 

 ply of compound words, and even if the nomenclator be no schol- 

 ar, any one who is moderately versed in the classics would com- 

 pose the desired names if he were only furnished with the neces- 

 sary information. 



The vagaries in which some nomenclators indulge are so ab- 

 surd as scarcely to be believed. Firstly, they will invent some 

 word that exists in no language whatever, merely because the 

 sound pleases their ears, and they like to amuse themselves with 



