240 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OP BIRDS. 
might he tolerated from a desire to acknowledge the 
ability with which these excellent artists have illustrated 
this particular group. We may now pass to those 
rules which wore particularly regard specific names. 
(198.) Specific namcn may he oecasionally derived 
from the geographic range of the species, provided il is 
peculiar. — Geographic names have been reprobated by 
some botanists ; but we do not think, if they are judi- 
ciously used, that they are otherwise than excellent. 
Thus, when only one species of a group, as in Troglo- 
dytes, is found in Europe, what name would be more 
characteristic than Europreus ? and to another, which is 
its prototype, but found beneath the tropics, JEquinoc- 
tialis is particularly appropriate. To the species of 
certain natural genera or groups, which are all inhabit- 
ants of one country, such names of course are never to 
be given ; and when a species has been so designated 
by the old writers, we think its name should be can- 
celled. Thus, the whole of the Meliphagldce being 
peculiar to Australia, — a fact not formerly known, — the 
old specific name of Nova Hollandia, applied to one of 
the species, independent of its faultiness in other re- 
spects, is quite inadmissible. These two instances of 
the opposite characters of geographic names will show 
the care necessary in their use. 
(199.) A specific name should he short, unlike the 
generic, and always an adjective, unless it commemo- 
rates* a naturalist. — Those specific names are per- 
haps the best which denote some particular habit ; but 
those are the most expressive which indicate a property 
that can be seen both in the live and the dead bird. 
Thus Orpheus polyglottos is excellent as applied to the 
American mock-thrush ; but no one who saw the species 
for the first time in a museum could trace any connec- 
tion between the bird and this name. And in the same 
way no person could imagine why a little bird, smaller 
* * Dr. Smith suggests two sorts of these names jn botanical nomenclature ; 
those terminating in ana may serve to commemorate the finder of a 
species, while the genitive ease may be used for those who founded the 
genus. 
