Remarks on Zoological Nomenclature. 23 



with less information, would possess an advantage over A, or get 

 an advantage by an accident. Ex. 1. Bnccinum plicosum, 

 Menke, is Fusus cinereus, Say, whose specific name is preap- 

 plied. Ex.2. An English compiler of juvenile books on natural 

 history, ambitious of shining in a wider field, and unable to dis- 

 cover anything new, changed the name of several British birds. 

 One of these was not what he supposed, but happened to be a 

 new species ; detected as such, and subsequently published by an 

 English naturalist, who must be cited for the species. Ex. 3. 

 An English naturalist arbitrarily changes what he supposes to be 

 the settled name of an African bird ; a French author subse- 

 quently discovers that it is a new species, proposes the published 

 name of his predecessor, under his own authority, and is un- 

 doubtedly entitled to the species. 



Vernacular names should be entirely discarded, and never 

 quoted. Vulgar names are confined to single countries, districts, 

 and languages ; they cause great confusion, and are a source of 

 continual annoyance to the foreign reader. An author thought- 

 lessly writes a paper on the identity of the red and mottled owls ; 

 the native reader knows the species, but will the dictionary of 

 the German who reads English, give him the meaning of mot- 

 tled owls 1 An English reader of a German magazine may find 

 a paper on Die gemeine Grasmiicke (literally, the common grass 

 gnat,) and pass it, not being interested in dipterology, but turn- 

 ing to his German-English dictionary, which happens (an unu- 

 sual circumstance) to contain the word, finds it to mean hedge- 

 sparrow, which is one thing in America, another in England, and 

 a third perhaps, in Australia. But as the authors of German- 

 English dictionaries do not understand natural history, the Gras- 

 miicke is a very different species from what those who speak 

 English call hedge-sparrow. So the bird Mullerchen (little mil- 

 ler) might be mistaken for the insect called miller, and the dic- 

 tionary does not contain the word. 



Many of the living naturalists of the last century, by the use 

 of vulgar names and synonyms, render their productions unintel- 

 ligible to more modern authors ; and unfortunately, some of the 

 latter have fallen into this error. The edition of the Regne 

 Animal now publishing, (which the editors consider it would be 

 "une espece de sacrilege" to correct,) says: "Les pagres differ- 

 ent des daurades" etc. and cites " le pagre de la Mediterranee, 



