.-In the fifth edition (1957) of the A.O.U. "Check-list of North American Birds," the scicntific name of the Bohemian Waxwing is given as Bombycilla garrula (Linnacus), as it was in the fourth (1931) and third (1910) editions. Earlicr editions placed the waxwings in the genus Ampelis, and the Bohemian Waxwing was listed as Ampelis garrulus (Linnaeus), although Ampelis is of feminine gender (Brown, "Composition of Scientific Words," p. 145, 1956). Current European literature is unanimous in giving the specific name a masculine tcrmination, Bombycilla garrulus (cL B.O.U. "Check-list of the Birds of Great Britain and Itcland," p. 87, 1952). The use of the feminine spclling "garrula" by the A.O.U. Committcc in 1910 sccms to have bccn derived from an crroncous impression that the specific name was intcndcd by Linnaeus as an adjcctivc, and must therefore conform in gender with the generic name (in this case, the fcmininc Bombycilla). Linnaeus described the Bohemian Waxwing in thc 10th edition of the "Systcma Naturac" (vol. 1, p. 95, 1758) as Lanius Garrulus, as correctly cited in the new A.O.U. "Chcck-list" (p. 460). In this edition of the "Systcma" Linnaeus uscd a capital initial letter for his specific names which wcrc intcndcd as substantives in the nominativc case, in apposition with the gcncric name. For adjcctival specific names hc used a lower-case initial lcttcr. Thus, cvcn when placcd in a feminine genus, the name would continue to bc spcllcd garrulus; the usagc in thc first two editions of the A.O.U. "Check-list" (Ampelis garrulus) was grammatically correct. Few birds would bc less appropriately called "garrulous" than a waxwing. Linnaeus, howcvcr, was not describing an attribute of the bird, but re/erring to the fact that some carlicr writers had placed this spcdcs in the jay genus Garrulus. This whole question was thoroughly discussed many years ago by A. E. Newton, in his rcvision of William Yarrcll's "History of British Birds" (p. 535-536, London, 1871), as follows: "The namc Ampelis was that under which Aldrovandus describcd the bird in 1599, complaining of Gesncr, who had, in 1555, called it Garrulus Bohemicus-- the Bohcmian Jay or Chattcrcr, and justly rcmarking that it had nothing to do with birds of the Pie-kind, that it did not chatter nor was it known to be peculiar to Bohemia. Linnacus, with whom all scicntific nomenclature begins, kept what sccmcd good to him in both these names, using that of Aldrovandus for the genus [in the 12th edition of the 'Systcma Naturac'] and Gesncr's first word for the spcdes--thc general likeness bctwccn a Jay and a Waxwing bcing sufficiently obvious .... "The liberty which many writers have taken with the Linnaean specific name, writing 'garrula' for 'Garrulus,' and thus turning a substantive which is in some degree appropriate into an adjective which is not, is also to be condemned." American usage should thus conform to the correct spelling Bombycilla garrulus (Linnaeus) as used abroad, rather than the present spelling of the A.O.U. "Check- list." I am supported in this opinion by Dr. Alexander Wetmore, to whom I am grateful for help in clearing up this nomenclatorial discrepancy.--KENsET C. P^RKs, Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Pa.