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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, phytozoön and phytozoa. The non-existent words infusoriæ and phytoaoœ 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.

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 Raphanus maritimus, Crambe maritima, and Alyssum maritimum. Consequently, when a species is transferred from one genus to another of different gender, an adjectival specific name must be altered, if necessary, to correspond. Thus there is a plant called Leontodon hirtus. From this we see at once that Leontodon is masculine; but the plant is sometimes placed in the genus Thrineia, which is feminine; its name must then be Thrincia hirta. Some of the first men of science have occasionally neglected this, and produced monstrosities, by the side of which the botanist's pet name for a common roadside weed, Dockia roadsidum, would not appear utterly disreputable. It will be noticed that adjectives ending in -e? generally drop the c in the other gendors, as Orobus niger, Sambucus nigra, (because the elder is a tree,) Solanun nigrum; but those ending in -fer and -ger, as well as asper and lacer, ratain the e, as Sonehus asper, Chara aspera, and Gastridium lendigerum. Most of the names of the large divisions of the animal and vegetable kingdoms are adjectives, agreeing with some noun understood. Thus, nearly all the names of the Natural Orders of plants are feminine plural, agreeing with plantæ, plants, and those of animals, (except fishes.) neuter plural, agreeing with animalia, animals. Examples are Cruciferæ, cross-bearing plants, and Rotifera, wheel-bearing animals. Young students almost always forget the fact that these are plural, and talk of "a Runnnculaces," "a Polyzoa," &c., which are as bad as "a Fungi"? There is sometimes a difficulty in finding a suitable English singular for these words, but it must be done, and can be done in various ways, as a ranunculaceous plant, a crucifer, a polyzoon^[1], a rotifer, and so on.

1. ↑ An erratum on page 149 reads "For "polyzoon," read "polyzoan," after the analogy of entomostracan, infusorian, &c." (Wikisource contributor note)