case with the
Titmouse tribe; for in this instance the hole went quite through
the tree, and on one side was large enough to admit the hand. As
the young ones were exposed to the weather, and were also liable
to be seen by anyone going along the adjoining footpath, I
attempted to remedy this defect by covering the larger hole with a
sod, which to a casual observer would appear to have grown there.
On taking the sod off one day, to see how the nestlings were going
on, I perceived that a clod of earth had fallen from the sod upon
them, and I took a stick and hooked it out, lest it should smother
them. Whilst I was doing this I perceived the old one sat on the
further side of the nest, so still and quiet that until I
perceived her eye I fancied she was dead; and she also endured
several pokings with the stick before she would move, although the
hole on the opposite side of the tree enabled her to escape
whenever she thought proper.

Perhaps Mr. Rennie, in his next edition of Montagu's Dictionary,
will give us a new name for this bird, as the one it has at
present is no more applicable to this species than it is to the
_Parus caeruleus_, or the _Parus major_, and not half so much so
as it would be to the _Parus biarnicus_; and he has changed good
names into bad ones with far less reason, witness _Corvus
frugilegus_ into _Corvus predatorius_. The former name is strictly
applicable to that species, and to that alone; and so useful a
bird does not deserve the name of a thief. The Chaffinch (which
received its name of _Coelebs_ from Linnaeus on account of the
males alone remaining in Sweden in the winter, which fact is
corroborated by White, who found scarcely any but females in
Hampshire during that season) has had its name changed by Mr.
Rennie into _Spiza_. The old name is characteristic of a
remarkable fact in the habits of this bird; why the new one is
more appropriate (neither understanding Greek, nor having read
Aristotle), I cannot say. Will Mr. Rennie condescend to enlighten
me?

Once for all--if we are to have a new nomenclature, let a
committee of able naturalists decide upon it, or let us submit to
the authority of a master (for instance Linnaeus or Temminck), but
don't let every bookmaker who publishes a work on Natural History,
rejecting names long established and universally received, give
new ones in such a way as serves only to show his own presumption
and to confuse what it ought to be his business to el