Birds. 1909 



part of the country, the queet ; the black guillemot (Uria Grylle), or the testie ; the 

 razor-bill auk (Alca Tarda), or the cooler, the Scotch word for coulter, from the resem- 

 blance which there is between that part of a plough and the bill of the bird ; the puf- 

 fin (Fralercula arclica), or the Tammy Nor ie, and, on the coast farther to the south, at 

 the immense rock of Dumbye, the Tammy Cheekie ; the kittiwake, a name made from 

 its cry (Lams tridactylus), or the killieweeik, or simply the kitty ; the herring gull 

 (Larus aryentatus), or the pew-il, which name is an exact imitation of its quickly-re- 

 peated cry ; and the cormorant (Pclecanus Carho), or the scrath, or scart. The num- 

 bers at this breeding- place are yearly growing less and less. This circumstance, which 

 is to be regretted, is, without doubt, to be principally, if not entirely, attributed to the 

 annoyance and destruction occasioned to these harmless and beautiful birds by parties, 

 as they are called, of pleasure, who repair to their abode almost daily during the sea- 

 son of incubation, and consider it as a harmless amusement wantonly to shoot them 

 by hundreds, and to leave them, dead or wounded, at the bottom of those rocks, of 

 which they ought ever to be regarded as a living, a conspicuous, and a most interest- 

 ing ornament. On the sandy open parts of the same coast the lesser tern (Sterna mi- 

 nuta) is known by the name of the clett, which expresses the peculiar cry by which the 

 bird is distinguished. A larger tern, the specific name of which I have not yet ascer- 

 tained, has obtained, on the sea coast near Peterhead, the name of the tearlie, a word 

 which is a most correct imitation of its usual cry. On the same coast, one of the 

 divers, probably the red-throated (Colymbus septentrionalis), which is the most com- 

 monly distributed of the genus, has, from its cries, derived the strange-sounding name 

 of harl loot. Among the marshy ground in the vicinity of the sea, and all along the 

 coast, is found the redshank (Totanus Calidris), which breeds abundantly, and which 

 is known by the name of the clee, from one of the notes uttered by it while on the 

 wing. 



To come from trivial and provincial names, to what is termed scientific nomen- 

 clature. As a general remark, it would, I think, be desirable that the specific name 

 of an animal should, if possible, contain an allusion to some peculiarity, either in ap- 

 pearance, structure, or habits, by which the particular species is distinguished from all 

 the others, of which the genus that it belongs to may happen to be composed. On 

 this account, I have a most decided objection to all scientific names ending in oides ; 

 and I am, therefore, sorry to see, by the Zoologist (Zool. 1778), that the name of Fu- 

 ligula ferinoides has been given to the newly-discovered pochard called after Mr. 

 Paget. The meaning, if it has any, of Fuligula ferinoides, is the Fidigula resembling 

 the ferina. But are not this pochard and the ferina each a distinct species, belong- 

 ing, both of them in an equally independent degree, to the genus Fuligula? Why, 

 therefore, should the newly-discovered bird, if it is really a distinct species, be associ- 

 ated with a species which is already in existence ? And why, instead of being arranged 

 simply and independently by itself, under its proper genus, like all the others of which 

 that genus is composed, should it be degraded into a sort of inferior species, or satel- 

 lite, attending in the wake of its more fortunate companion, the ferina? The most 

 ludicrous name of this description which I have ever seen, is, if I recollect right, the 

 Regulus Reguloides. This evidently must mean the Regulus having the appearance of 

 the Regulus, or, in other words, the Regulus which resembles itself. The bird must 

 surely have been named in Ireland. Nothing, it appears to me, is more calculated to 

 impede the progress of real knowledge in natural history than the rage which prevails 

 for reckless changes in nomenclature, and especially for the invention of such names 

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