294 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



" Handbook of the British Flora," a work " specially destined 

 to assist the unscientific botanist in the determination of 

 British Plants," though indeed a very considerable amount of 

 scientific knowledge is necessary to rightly understand and 

 use the terms employed in the descriptions, has made up a 

 set of English names, to which he gives precedence even over 

 the Latin ones, and in framing which he habitually thrusts 

 aside the real vernacalar names of the plants. Thus in 

 order that the species of Lychnis may have a common 

 generic name, he adopts Lychnis as an English word, and so 

 the White Campion becomes the White Lychnis, the Ked 

 Campion the Bed Lychnis, the Corncockle the Corn Lychnis, 

 the Bagged Bobin the Meadow Lychnis, the Common Chick- 

 weed is the " Chickweed Starwort," but as the Mouse-ear 

 Chickweed belongs to another genus, we must call it the 

 " Common Cerast." 



Then for an example in Zoology. In M'Gillivray's *' British 

 Birds," we find a system of English names on the same 

 principle, where the Long-Eared Owl becomes the Mottled 

 Tufted-Owl, the Short-Eared Owl the Streaked Tufted-Owl, 

 the Scops-Eared Owl is the Aldrovandine Owlet, the Snowy 

 Owl the Snowy Day Owl, the Little Owl the Bare-toed Day 

 Owl, and so on. 



The great objection to this idea is, that it serves no purpose. 

 When we talk or write about organisms from a scientific 

 point of view, we must and will use the current and 

 authorised scientific nomenclature, and no other can serve 

 any purpose but confusion. And when we talk familiarly 

 about the common animals and plants we see around us, we 

 shall certainly continue to give them the names with which we 

 have been familiar from our childhood. If we do not say 

 Myosotis palustris, we shall certainly say Forget-me-not, and 

 never think of using such a term as " Water Myosote." As 

 no rule of priority or of universality can be applied to these 

 names, they are useless to any one entering on the scientific 

 study of botany or zoology; and by the non-scientific they 

 never will be either used or understood. 



It is, however, very desirable in books, museums, and 

 botanical and zoological gardens, to append also the real and 



