RETROSPECT. 



355 



and varied host of species, is now, I believe, restricted to that parti- 

 cular group, or genus of finches, to which the canary bird (F. canaria) 

 belongs ; and I know of no generic name that has been applied hitherto, 

 exclusively to the chaffinch genus. The appellation Spiza is, I think, 

 the most appropriate, and the best that could be affixed to these birds, 

 the common chaffinch being undoubtedly the am^a of Aristotle ; but 

 the term, Spiza, unfortunately, has already been employed by Bona- 

 parte to designate a genus of American birds (the painted bunting or 

 nonpareil finch, Emberiza ciris, Wilson, and its immediate congeners), 

 and according to the generally received rules of nomenclature, that 

 genus must retain the name first given to it, however inapplicable and 

 inappropriate it may chance to be 5 but the time must finally arrive, 

 when a complete and thorough alteration will take place throughout 

 zoological nomenclature, and I consider it now to be almost the duty of 

 every lover of Natural History to endeavour, as far as he is able, to 

 improve the systematic arrangement of the various productions of 

 nature. The chief bar, however, at present, to all improvements in 

 classification, is the confusion which is caused by calling the same 

 species by various and different names ; but this confusion may, in a 

 great measure, if not entirely, be prevented, by adding to the approved 

 systematic name of an animal, that also by which it was first known 

 and described in systematical nomenclature. Thus, speaking of the 

 birds now under consideration, we might say i( the chaffinch (Spiza 

 leucoptera, Fringilla ccelebs, Lin.), the bramblefinch (Spiza montana, 

 Fringilla montifrmgilla 3 Lin.), or the ring-ousel (Petrocincla meruloidcs, 

 Turdus torqiiatns, Lin.), &c." If this simple plan were to be gene- 

 rally pursued in books, there would, of course, be no further necessity 

 for swelling the pages of natural history with those immense lists of 

 intermediate synonymes, with which they are now so frequently clogged 

 and rendered tedious. To return, however, to the retrospect ; instead 

 of "mule," at page 188, line 7, read mute. 



No. for May, page 197; line 4, erase the first u or ; " page 200, line 

 22, for major," read magna ; page 202, line 4, erase the commas in 

 the nightingale's concluding note, as I have there endeavoured to ex- 

 press it ; and in a few lines afterwards, place a comma between the notes 

 water-bubble and whitlow • not to write down these notes at all would 

 be much better than to express them incorrectly. At line 19, also, a 

 note has been printed " curre," instead of carve. As this paper " on 

 the nightingale " is merely the continuation of that at page 134, written 

 at the same time, it will account for the latter concluding so very 



