NOTKS. 521 



The late Mr. Swinhob observed (P. Z. S., 1871, p. 365,) 

 that he had seen a specimen of the true Anthus obscurus from 

 India. I have ever since been trying to verify this. I wrote 

 to Mr. Swinhoe about it, but got no answer. I have never seen 

 an Indian specimen of this bird, nor have I ever met with any- 

 one who has. India is utterly outside the range of this species, 

 and I cannot but conclude that Mr. Swinhoe was mistaken. 



Under these circumstances, although on Mr. Svvinhoe's autho- 

 rity it has stood there for many years, I have now excluded it 

 from my list of the Birds of India ; after all Swinhoe may have 

 meant to refer to spinoletta so commonly in former times con- 

 founded with it. 



In the last number of the Ibis, the editors remark : — 



" It appears not to be understood by some naturalists that 

 specific names may be substantives. Linnaeus used many such, 

 e.g., Turdus merulct, Emberiza cirlus, and Fringilla spinus, in 

 each of which cases, it will be observed, the specific name is of 

 a different gender from the generic, the two terms being placed 

 in apposition. In the face of this, certain naturalists do not 

 hesitate to violate the plainest rules of Latinity, in order to 

 bring their specific and generic names to the same termination. 

 Not to speak of Mr. Sharpe's Cerchneis timmncula (!), Mr. 

 Dresser has lately attempted to turn agricola into an adjectival 

 form (Acrocephalus agricolus, Dresser, B. of Eur., pt. 53), not 

 considering that it is a masculine noun, though ending in a. — 

 Surely no one who has been to school can forget. 



(i O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint. 



" Agricola; 1" 



" In the new number of " Stray Feathers" Mr. Hume, in a 

 similar frame of mind, proposes to convert " eremita" — another 

 masculine noun — into an adjective, and tries to persuade us to 

 call our old friend Fregilus graculus, " Graculus eremitus.'" 



Now, in the first place, I beg to point out that Jerdon himself 

 assigned the name agricolus and not agricola, and that there is 

 not only nothing to show that he did not intend to apply the 

 word agricolus as an adjective, but an irresistible presumption 

 that he did so intend it. If it be said that there is no such 

 adjective in classical Latin, the answer is that at least half the 

 adjectives in use in scientific specific nomenclature have no com- 

 plete classical warrant. The greatest purists in nomenclature 

 use a nearly similarly compounded adjective monticolus, and 

 Liun^ himself gives us rusticolus, (S. N., I., 125, No. 7), as well 

 as rwticola, and though doubtless the adjective agricolaris would 

 have beeu more correct, there is nothing so glaringly offensive 



