THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 89 



to give it the most appropriate appellation that can 

 be found, but when a name has once become current, 

 it is no longer the sense but the sound that recalls 

 the idea of the object to our minds, and it is, there- 

 fore of more importance that a name should be 

 universally adopted, than that its meaning should 

 be exclusively applicable to the object it denotes. 

 To insure this universality in the use of terms, the 

 only rule is to recur to the name originally given by 

 the founder of the genus or species, which name I 

 think no modern innovator has any more right to 

 alter than he has to improve upon the name bestowed 

 on a child by its godfathers. For these reasons I 

 must still continue to prefer the term Motacilla alba 

 to either M. lotor or M. maculosa, and to call the 

 Goatsucker Caprimulgus, instead of either Nycti- 

 chelidon or Vociferator. I will now conclude these 

 hasty remarks by referring your correspondent to 

 Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, for Janu- 

 ary last, (vol. VIII, p. 36,) where he will find the 

 same subject treated of more at large." I agree with 

 Mr. Strickland when he says, "the second requisite 

 of scientific nomenclature is, that when once estab- 

 lished, it should remain unaltered:" but then the first 

 requisite must have been previously complied with, — 

 that an appropriate name has been originally given. 

 Mr. Strickland may, if he chooses, "regard as 

 erroneous the prevailing notion" that correct names 

 may be substituted for incorrect ones, but the notion 

 will continue to prevail so long as human beings 



