12 
SWEDISH BLUE-TIIROATED WARBLER. 
larly in the island, and the white-spotted variety is not 
known there. 
M. J. Verreaux says that the red-spotted variety is 
constant, and the Indian skins which I have examined 
have this mark in all the specimens. Schlegel has 
called the variety Lusciola cyanecula orientalis ; hut 
Mr. Blyth referred the bird he has described in 
India to the Avhite-spotted variety, and considers it, like 
most other ornithologists, as the Motacilla suecica of 
Linnaeus. All this confusion might have been avoided 
had naturalists merely described the two birds as va- 
rieties of each other, which it appears to me they are 
undoubtedly, although the constant character of the white 
or red spots evidently entitles them to be considered 
as separate races of the same original stock. As only 
one bird has been figured and described as occasionally 
found in England, I take the opportunity of introducing 
the other variety in this work. 
We have in this bird one of the many illustrations 
which the modern system of nomenclature affords us 
of the impropriety of tampering with generic names. 
Linnaeus placed it in the genus Motacilla, to which it 
is in its habits closely allied. Latham subsequently re- 
moved it into his Sylvia, where it ought to have finally 
rested. In accordance however with what is termed the 
‘^system of nomenclature adapted to the progress of 
Science,” we find it changed by one writer to Lusciola, 
by another to Cyanecula. Selby placed it with the 
Redstarts in the genus Phoenicura, Eyton in that of 
Ficedula, Degland in that of Eritliacus, and Hodgson 
in that of Calliope. I trust I need only mention these 
facts to condemn a system false in principle and inju- 
rious to the progress of Natural Science; for we must 
always bear in mind that the general reader and 
