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most careful and original monograph that requires to be read 

 with one eye whilst the other is fixed on the most recent 

 dictionary of scientific terms. They do not mind that rational 

 use of scientific words that is necessary to denote things for 

 which there is no English name. 



There is another point upon which I should like to say a 

 few words. Are we doing a wise thing in our writing and 

 talking when we so persistently ignore the old folk-names ? 

 I know that in many cases those names were applied in the 

 loosest fashion, and many of them therefore became more 

 generic than specific. Why have some organisms got these 

 trivial names attached to them and others not ? The answer, 

 I presume, is that our forefathers started on the task of 

 naming the plants and animals around them, but becoming 

 alarmed at its seemingly infinite character gave up almost at 

 the beginning. Or it may be that they could only spare 

 time to label and roughly classify those things that annoyed 

 or pleased them, and those they used as food, clothing, or 

 medicine. However it be, they gave names to a few things 

 and left the bulk for us, and as exactitude is the main reason 

 for having names we made new ones for all, adapting where 

 we could a riame that the ancient Greeks or Romans had 

 used for that or a similar creature. Some of the names very 

 happily describe some striking characteristic of the thing 

 named, so that to know the meaning of the name is equal to 

 enabling you to identify the thing at first sight. Such an 

 one is Drosera rotundifolia, which years ago, before ever I 

 had seen a figure of the plant, enabled me to know it when 

 I accidentally stumbled across it in Epping Forest. Some 

 of the names are equally misleading in this respect, such as 

 Campanula rotiindifolia, which would lead one to look for a 

 bell-shaped flower with round leaves. As a fact, it never has 

 round leaves, those of the stem being long and narrow, whilst 

 those from the root (which are referred to in the name) are 

 more heart-shaped than round ; moreover, they do not 

 present a permanent character, for they become absorbed or 

 withered before the flowers are open. Scientific names may 

 be quite devoid of definiteness in other respects, as when a 

 plant of the moorland, like the narrow-leaved oat-grass, is 

 dubbed Avena pratensis. They may be quite as absurd or 

 more so than the folk-names, when they are merely the 

 names of mythological personages, such as our butterfly 

 names of Hyale, Helice, Euphrosyne, Paphia, Cinxia, and 

 the rest, which tell absolutely nothing of the character, habit 

 or food-plant of the species. On the other hand, many of 



