57 
in Mr. Selby’s meritorious British Ornithology are very aptly and euphoniously 
designated. Yet this author is often extremely careless about the names of his 
land birds, though he seems to prefer the appellation “ warbler” for the Fauvet 
genus. For my own part, I much object to “ warbler” as a generic name at all: 
firstly, from its having been so very extensively applied by writers in quite a tech¬ 
nical sense ; and secondly, because it appears invidious to term exclusively any 
particular genus of song birds by an appellation of such very general import. 
When, however, we find such a non-exclusive term actually applied to birds that 
do not warble , and by those, too, who profess to reform the nomenclature, it be¬ 
comes still more inapplicable. Wlio, for instance, can be expected to adopt 
the name “ Hedge Warbler”* for a bird that neither warbles nor habitually fre¬ 
quents hedges ? Yet such an appellation is proposed, by Mr. Neville Wood, for 
the Sylvia loquax , a species which might be aptly designated the JDarlc- 
legged Petty chaps ; a name which is not liable to any such objections. Surely we 
ought to discriminate between improvement and alteration , and allow no newly- 
coined names to pass muster which are so very obviously inappropriate. In scien¬ 
tific nomenclature, the Whitebreast has been variously denominated by different 
authors. It is the Motacilla curruca , and also the M. dermetorum of Linneus; 
the Curruca garrula of Brisson and Selby; the C. sylviella of Dr. Fleming; it 
is the Sylvia (Curruca) curruca of Mr. Jenyns, the S. curruca of Latham 
and Temminck, and also the S. dermetorum of the former. Buffon calls it La 
Fauvette Babillard , and Temminck Becjin babillard; Babillard is also Mr. 
Bennie’s name for it, in Montagu’s Dictionary . It is the Klapper Grasmiicke 
of the German, Meyer, and the Bianchetto of the Italians. Its more popular 
name among the Germans signifies “ Little Miller.” 
* A name, too, which is not in the slightest degree the less objectionable from its having 
been applied, by many writers, to the Accentor modularis. 
VOL. I. I 
