294 Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,


lie wrote “ titys" ? No doubt a mere student of living birds

would give the problem up as a bad job, but an ornithologist

of any eminence is never quite happy unless he is having an

argument and here was an opening. Several gentlemen with

distinguished names thought he meant to write “ dies ,” a

Greek word meaning ‘an avenger’ ; but Prof. Newton announced

with conviction that it should read “ tiiis," which originally

meant ‘a small chirping bird.’ Mr. J. E. Halting, also an

eminent ornithologist, was not at all satisfied with this explana¬

tion, and insisted that Linnaeus was thinking of the Greek

adjective “ tithos ,” which means ‘ domesticated ’ and would have

reference to the bird’s habit of perching on houses and nesting

in holes of walls. Then the new school of nomenclature appears

upon the scene and decides that the bird that Linnaeus described

was not a Black Redstart at all but a hen Redstart of venerable age

and somewhat dusky plumage, and that, therefore, the Linnaean

specific name could not stand but must give place to the name

which stood next in chronological order, and that the Black

Redstart must be known for all time by the truly apalling title of

“ Phoenic?inis ochrurus gib?altarie?isis." the first of which epithets

means ‘ purple-tail ’ (a misdescription), the second ‘yellow-tail,’

(a contradiction), and the third can hardly be called descriptive,

seeing that, according to Irby, this species is only seen at Gib¬

raltar in winter. (I have no quarrel with the new nomenclature,

but at the same time I cannot help thinking that it would have

been far more satisfactory if a really representative international

congress had settled the question for all time by selecting that

name for each species which appeared to them to be most suit¬

able. If priority alone is to decide the question we shall often

find ourselves forced to accept a name which may be ungram¬

matical, inappropriate, or, as in the above instance, absolutely

meaningless. However, we shall have to judge the system by

its success ; if it succeeds, we shall at all events have uniformity ;

if it fails to secure universal recognition, it will have made con¬

fusion worse confounded).


Hartert sketches the range of this species as follows:—

“Europe from Baltic to Mediterranean, east to Roumania and

“ Bulgaria. Wintering partly in Europe but mostly in Africa.



