2724 Birds. 



that branch of them which embraces Ornithology, and which is drawn 

 up by Professor Wagner of Munich, I have been powerfully impressed 

 by the rational curiosity, the incessant activity and the untiring zeal, 

 which are in operation, almost in every part of the world, with regard 

 to this beautiful portion of the animal kingdom. Numerous and 

 hitherto unseen specimens of birds are, in consequence, submitted 

 every other day to what they were doubtless from the beginning in- 

 tended to be by their heavenly Maker — the inspection and the study 

 of man, the chief and most intellectual of his creations in the present 

 world. But I cannot refrain from saying that I have, at the same 

 time, been struck with the excessive desire, which would appear to 

 exist, not only to multiply genera and to fabricate names of a startling 

 character to the common and unlearned reader, but also to change 

 and to throw away numbers of those which have been already long in 

 existence. There seems, throughout the whole science of Ornithology, 

 to be but little that can be regarded as fixed and permanent ; and a 

 chief occupation of every writer who is more eminent than usual, we 

 might almost be tempted to think, was the overturning of what had 

 been proposed and established on the subject by those who had gone 

 before him : and even had the changes which are so frequently intro- 

 duced been imperatively called for by the state of Ornithology in the 

 present day, 1 am unable — although at the risk of exposing my igno- 

 rance — to conceal the belief that the very principles upon which these 

 are formed are sometimes unphilosophical, and, in more cases than 

 one, are not a little absurd. On this particular point I have already 

 ventured to make a few remarks, more especially on such names in 

 science as end in oides (Zool. 1909). I was not then aware that ob- 

 jections to names of this description had previously appeared in print, 

 and I was, therefore, not a little pleased to find, by a quotation made 

 by Dr. Wagner (p. 61) from the ' Philososophia Botanica,' that one of 

 the rules laid down by Linneus himself, on the nomenclature to be 

 observed in Botany, is in the following terms : " Nomina generica in 

 oides desinentia e foro releganda sunt;" — 'generic names ending 

 in oides ought to be put out of court ' (§ 216). It is obvious that if 



persevering minute and scientific research. The freedom of disquisition, which in 

 France, but more especially in this country, is allowed on every subject, is understood 

 to be more limited in Germany, and to be exercised there with greater danger from 

 consequences. Has this circumstance any influence in directing the German mind 

 — at once, restless, imaginative and laborious — to the cultivation of some particular 

 branches of knowledge more than to that of others ? 



