124 
The Queensland Naturalist 
August, 1938 
apparently were on the move, as I went a couple of days 
later to renew their acquaintance and found no trace of 
them. As the Museum is in possession of several skins 
of this species shot in the Moreton Bay district, it would 
seem that its presence here is not unprecedented. 
Experiences of this description are familiar to all 
observers of wild life, and are interesting in that they 
serve two purposes, one of which is to warn the observer 
against jumping to conclusions, and the other is to re- 
mind ornithologists, who invent geographical and ether 
boundaries to confine our birds, of the somewhat obvious 
fact that these delightful and interesting feathered 
friends of ours have wings — and frequently use them. 
THE “CRITIC A BOTANIC A” OF LINNAEUS 
Translated by the late Sir Arthur Hort, Bt., M.A. 
Revised by Miss M. L. Green, B.A., F.L.S., Botanist, 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
The present translation was finished at the Royal 
Botanic Gardens, Kew, England, after Sir Arthur Hort’s 
death, by Miss M. L. Green, and has been published by 
the Ray Society. Lady Hort arranged through the 
Director of Kew Gardens, Sir Arthur W. Hill, who writes 
the introduction, to have a certain number of copies to dis- 
tribute to botanists who might like to have the work. A 
copy has been presented to the Queensland Herbarium. 
The published price is 12/6. 
Before the time of Linnaeus there was great con- 
fusion in botanical nomenclature. Every botanist was a 
law unto himself and chose his own way of giving names 
to plants. 
Quite apart from the importance of the Critica 
Botanica as a basis of modern nomenclature, some of it 
makes quite interesting reading, and many of the names 
of early botanists mentioned are familiar to us in generic 
names in Australia, such as Tournefortia, Dillenia, 
Oldenandia, Lippia, Plumiera, and others. 
In Linnaeus’ opening chapter on Generic Names, he 
has the following: — 4 ‘ Even a rustic knows plants, and 
so maybe does a brute beast, but neither can make any- 
one else the wiser. . . . The botanist is distinguished 
from the laymen by the fact that the former is able to 
give a name which fits one particular plant and not 
another, and which can be understood by anyone all the 
world over.” We wish sometimes we could repeat his 
definition of a botanist at the present day. 
