ll falcons, to begin with, as would be the
first condition of a wise nomenclature, establishing resemblance by
specific name, before marking variation by individual name? No such
luck. I hold you up the plates of the thirteen birds one by one, and
read you their names off the back:--

The first, is an Aquila.
The second, a Haliaetus.
The third, a Milvus.
The fourth, a Pandion.
The fifth, an Astur.
The sixth, a Falco.
The seventh, a Pernis.
The eighth, a Circus.
The ninth, a Buteo.
The tenth, an Archibuteo.
The eleventh, an Accipiter.
The twelfth, an Erythropus.
And the thirteenth, a Tinnunculus.

There's a nice little lesson to entertain a parish school-boy with,
beginning his natural history of birds!

6. There are not so many varieties of robin as of hawk, but the
scientific classifiers are not to be beaten. If they cannot find a
number of similar birds to give different names to, they will give two
names to the same one. Here are two pictures of your own redbreast, out
of the two best modern works on ornithology. In one, it is called
"Motacilla rubecula;" in the other, "Rubecula familiaris."

7. It is indeed one of the most serious, as one of the most absurd,
weaknesses, of modern naturalists to imagine that _any_ presently
invented nomenclature can stand, even were it adopted by the consent of
nations, instead of the conceit of individuals. It will take fifty
years' digestion before the recently ascertained elements of natural
science can permit the arrangement of species in any permanently (even
over a limited period) namable order; nor then, unless a great man is
born to perceive and exhibit such order. In the meantime, the simplest
and most descriptive nomenclature is the best. Every one of these
birds, for instance, might be called falco in Latin, hawk in English,
some word being added to distinguish the genus, which should describe
its principal aspect or habit. Falco montium, Mountain Hawk; Falco
silvarum, Wood Hawk; Falco procellarum, Sea Hawk; and the like. Then,
one descriptive epithet would mark species. Falco montium, aureus,
Golden Eagle; Falco silvarum, apivorus, Honey Buzzard; and so on; and
the naturalists of Vienna, Paris, and London should confirm the names
of known creatures, in conclave, once every half-century, and let them
so st