﻿244 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



deed, those few groups which are already distinguished 

 by a separate vernacular name, as the redstarts, wagtails, 

 robins, and stonechats. The Sylvia regulus, being 

 at the head of this family, should more especially be 

 termed a warbler par excellence ; that is, if the same 

 rule is to guide us both in scientific and in vernacular no- 

 menclature. By this plan, some sort of connection will 

 be pointed out between the modern subgenera ; and we 

 shall not have two birds, actually belonging to the same 

 genus (like the yellow and the gold-crested warblers), 

 known by two names, which have no apparent relation 

 to each other. 



(204.) In regard to the second proposition, that each 

 genus and subgenus in general ornithology should have 

 a distinct vernacular name, the difficulties are of a much 

 more insuperable nature. It would require the coinage 

 of between 300 and 400 English names, for birds of 

 whose manners and habits we know little or nothing : 

 and, after all, what possible use would this accomplish ? 

 Is it not sufficient, for instance, to designate the five pri- 

 mary groups of the parrots by their present well known 

 names of maccaws, parrots, cockatoos, lories, and parra- 

 keets, without breaking these up into twenty-five others*, 

 which would make ordinary persons lose sight, in fact, 

 of the groups themselves, in a multiplicity of small dis- 

 tinctions which they never could comprehend, and which 

 would only perplex them. But what should we do with 

 the woodpeckers (Picus L.), a group of the same value, 

 and therefore containing as great a number of subgenera 

 as the parrots ? Five and twenty names, at this rate, 

 must be devised for all the variations of a woodpecker ! 

 and they must be appropriate, for otherwise, what is 

 their use ? It is only when we come to follow a theory, 

 whether in science or in common matters, down to its 

 details, and see how it will work, that we can judge 

 of its practicability or of its use. Some few vernacular 

 names, indeed, may be occasionally added, but the con- 



* This will be the exact number of the subgenera when the five types 

 of each are characterised in our second volume. 



