2136 Birds. 



the great object of all names ; if a name can be further made to convey any correct 

 idea of appearance or habits, so much the better ; but where it answers the first pur- 

 pose, and is otherwise unobjectionable, let your correspondents take warning by the 

 tremendous catalogues of synonyms which impede the studies of our entomological 

 brethren, and beware of what Mr. Smith calls " the rage for reckless changes in no- 

 menclature." — William R. Fisher ; Great Yarmouth, April 14, 1848. 



Nomenclature of Species. — With regard to Mr. Newton's suggestions on the sub- 

 ject of nomenclature of species (Zool. 2062), I beg to claim the editorial privilege of 

 expressing an opinion. Mr. Newton has mixed up two very distinct questions ; first, 

 the propriety of imposing good names in the first instance ; secondly, the propriety of 

 changing imposed names for others supposed to be better. The first proposition 

 needs no discussion : as an abstract (1 will not say practicable) proposition it is per- 

 fectly sound. The second proposition, that of revising imposed names with a view to 

 amending them, is unsound, on the ground that if we admit that a name may be 

 changed once, why not change it twice ? why not thrice ? why not a hundred times ? 

 Let us take Mr. Newton's example. He objects to the name of Fuligula ferinoides ; 

 I admit that it is bad : he proposes Fuligula leucoptera instead ; this is much worse : 

 the bird is not white-winged, and not more nearly approaching ivhite-winged than many 

 other ducks. Now, admitting Mr. Newton's proposition of giving the right of chang- 

 ing a name, every ornithologist would wish to change this changed name, for I may 

 say, in the most friendly spirit, that I cannot call to mind a name more incorrect or 

 objectionable. But as Mr. Newton's is only a suggested example, and was perhaps 

 suggested hastily and without due consideration, I will cite an example of an attempted 

 change of name boldly put forth under the authority of our greatest ornithologist. 

 Mr. Swainson, with great ingenuity, demonstrated that the common hedge-sparrow 

 was improperly named, and pleaded, with his usual eloquence of pen, that shujfiewing 

 was a better, nay a perfect and unobjectionable name : nobody controverted his opinion, 

 but nobody adopted his suggestion or even gave it a consideration ; and the hedge- 

 sparrow remains and will remain a * hedge-sparrow ' and a ' dunnock \ while the Eng- 

 lish language endures. I cannot pronounce too emphatically that priority is the only 

 law I can ever consent to acknowledge in the nomenclature of species. — Edward Newman. 



Leicestershire Names of Birds. — It has frequently occurred to me, that a complete 

 dictionary of the provincial and local names of our British birds would not only be on 

 many accounts of great interest to the ornithologist, but is an absolute desideratum 

 in the ornithology of these islands. Recent authors, it is true, have done much to- 

 wards this desirable end ; but there is still, I am convinced, an immense number of 

 local epithets of our more common species, that have never yet found their way into 

 any list of synonyms. It may perhaps, at any rate, amuse some of the readers of the 

 4 Zoologist ' to become acquainted with the following list of the prevailing appellatives 

 of certain of the more familiar of the fowls of Heaven, bestowed upon them by the 

 natives of certain parts of Leicestershire (and probably also of the adjoining counties), 

 whose dialect yet retains much of the " good old Saxon," and is as broad as the tire of 

 a ten-inch waggon-wheel. It may be as well here to observe, that these rustics, though 

 not very discriminative of species, are more so than in most equally rural districts, 

 and many of their names are exceedingly appropriate, if not always euphonious. In 

 this county, then, when: the barn owl is very common, that bird is known to the na- 

 tives as a ' padge,' or ' padge owl,' while the tawny owl is the 'owl,' and the long- 

 eared and short cared species are both ' horn owls.' The green woodpecker is a bird 



