Mr. H. Seebohm on the Genus Sylvia. 313 



Syn. Suppl. i. p. 287, 1787), of the clear definition of which 

 there cannot be any doubt. The adoption of Latham's name 

 would be a very simple solution of the difficulty, were it not 

 that there exist two earlier names which have a claim upon 

 our attention. The first of these is the Motacilla borin of 

 Boddaert. This name was founded upon D'Aubenton's figure 

 of ' ' la petite Fauvette " in the Planches Enluminees.' There 

 seems to be little doubt that Brisson's " petite Fauvette" is 

 the Garden-Warbler. Buffon's Description of the bird also 

 agrees fairly well with this species ; but he confuses it with 

 two other birds. A local name for the Whitethroat is ({ la 

 Passerine/' and for the Spectacled Warbler (which is an almost 

 exact miniature of the Whitethroat) " la Passerinette." 

 Buffon calls his bird " la Passerinette ou petite Fauvette." 

 The other species which BuiFon apparently mixes up with the 

 Garden-Warbler is the ChiffchafF, the note and nest of which 

 are erroneously ascribed to " la Passerinette." I submit that 

 D'Aubenton's figure cannot be accepted as a clear definition 

 of the Garden- Warbler. I do not deny that it may have been 

 drawn from a stuffed specimen of this species ; but the posi- 

 tion does not admit of the structural characters being seen, 

 and the coloration is faulty in the extreme, so much so that 

 Dresser, in his ' Birds of Europe,' identified it with the Lesser 

 Whitethroat. But I am not sure that the name cannot be 

 rejected on its merits. The name borin does not appear to 

 be a classical name at all. I take it to be simply the local 

 name of the bird ; and to apply it as a scientific name would 

 probably appear as absurd to the ornithologists of " le pays 

 de Genes " as the names Pica magpie or Sylvia blackcap 

 would to us. 



The other name is the Motacilla salicaria of Linnaeus. 

 This name has been adopted by Prof. Newton and accepted 

 by Mr. Dresser. I am sorry to be obliged to differ from our 

 greatest authority on ornithological nomenclature, and would 

 willingly have indorsed his name if I had not been convinced 

 that others would have repudiated it, and that by so doing I 

 should only be prolonging the agonies of its death. There is 

 considerable circumstantial evidence that Linnaeus intended 



SER. IV. VOL. III. 2 A 



