the stem, as in library, The knowledge and application of these few facts alone would save many a blunder which now appears even in print. For instance, one of the commonest mistakes, so common that the Rev M. J. Berkeley mentions it expressly in his "Outlines of British Fungology." is to say "a fungi." By what has been said, it will be seen that, Fungus the Latin plural of Fungus; it is as correct, therefore, to say "a Fungi," as it would be to say "a Funguses." One great source of error is the fact, that the singular of the first declension and the neuter plural of the second have the same ending -a. But to decide to which of these a word ending in -a belongs, it is only necessary to consider whether it is singular or plural. This would prevent such mistakes as to use ciliæ as the plural of cilia; so with septum and septa, infusorium and infusoria,
phytozeén and phytozoa. The non-existent words infusove and phiytesoe may be seen in well-known chemical and botanical handbooks respectively.
Generic names are always nouns, and their gender, consequently, is invariable; specific names are mostly adjectives, and can then vary in gender, but otherwise they resemble nouns.
Adjectives.
 | A table should appear at this position in the text. See Help:Table for formatting instructions. |
In the classical languages it was the rule that an adjective must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun to which it refers.
Compare Rephanus maritouus, Crambe maritima, snd stlyeszon marittaren. Consequently, when a species is transferred from ono genus to another of different pouler, an adjectival specifie name must be altered, if neeea- sary, to correspoud. ‘hua there is a plant ealled Leontodan hirtus. From this we see at once that Leontodon is masculine; but the plant is some- limes placed in the cenus Thrincia, which is feminine; ig uame must then be Thriacia hirta, Some of the first men of scicuce havo ocen- sionally uegleebed this, and produced moustrosities, by the side of which the botaniat’s pet name for a common roadside weed, Dochkia roudsidum, would not appear utterly disreputable. It will be noticed that adjectives cnding in -e? generally drop the ¢ in the other gondors, as Orobus aiger, Sambucus nigra, (becausa the elder is a tres,) Salamon nigrum; bat those eniling in -ser and -ger, as well as asper and laeer, rotwin the e, as Senchus asper, Chara aspera, and Gastridium tewligerum, Most of the names of the large divisions of the animal aud vegetable kingdoms aro adjectives, avec with some noun understood, Thus, noarly all the names af tho Natural Orders of planta avo feminine plural, agreeing with plant7, plants, and those of aniinuls, (except Gslies,} penter plural, agrecing with aniuatic, animals. Hsamplos are Crneifenc, cross-bearing plants, and Rotitera, wheel-bearing animale. Young students almost always forget the fact that these are plural, and talk of ‘a Runnneulaces,” “a Polyzou,” &e., which are as bad og 2 Vusgi? There is sometimes « diticulty in finding a sniteble English singular for these words, lmt it must bo done, and ean be dene in varfaus weys, as & tabunculaceens plant, a erieilor, a polyzoon[1], a rotifer, and so on,
To Be Continued.
- ↑ An erratum on page 149 reads "For "polyzoon," read "polyzoan," after the analogy of entomostracan, infusorian, &c." (Wikisource contributor note)
