THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 33 



of Ornithology does not suffer by this incorrect 

 application of English names, because those familiar 

 appellations have no real or necessary connection 

 with science.'''' With Mr. Strickland's permission 

 I beg leave to state that the science does suffer by 

 the " incorrect application of English names," and 

 even if it did not, I should still contend for their 

 alteration simply because they were "incorrect." 

 Although Mr. Strickland has brought no facts to 

 support his assertion, I will not make that an apology 

 for leaving my statement equally unsupported. To 

 prove that incorrect English names mislead, I will 

 produce a few instances out of numbers that occur. 

 In Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol. 

 VI, p. 72, a correspondent notes down the "Mocking 

 bud" in a list of birds which visit his neighbourhood 

 (Clithero, Lancashire.) This occasions another cor- 

 respondent to remark as follows : — " By the Mocking 

 bird observed at Clithero, Lancashire, (p. 72) your 

 correspondent, I presume, means the Curruca salica* 

 ria of Fleming, (Sedge Reedling, Salicaria phrag- 

 mitis, Selby.) Had he appended the systematic 

 name to the Lancashire one, he would not have left 

 his communication open to the following query, 

 made to me by one to whom I had lent my copy— 

 "Is the American Mocking bird (Turduspolyglottis) 

 a spring visitant to England," p. 279. What becomes 

 of Mr. Strickland's assertion, " we are much more 

 likely to be understood" if we adopt the vulgar and 

 incorrect names ? " Mockinff bird" is the common 



