12 SWEDISH BLUE-THROATED WARBLER. 



larly in the island, and tlie 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 Luscicola cyanecula orientalis ; but 

 Mr. Blyth referred the bird he has described in 

 India to the white-spotted variety, and considers it, like 

 most other ornithologists, as the Motacilla suecica of 

 Linngeus. 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. 

 Linngeus 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 Plicenicura, Eyton in that of 

 Ficedula, Degland in that of Erithacus, 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 



