VOL. rid Nomenclature of Organic Life. 2 
quently finding thet there were other species without glands, and his 
generic name would be somewhat inaccurate, he retired not only 
the generic, but the specific name as well, in favor of a later manu- 
script one of Nuttall’s—so that the name of the plant as it appears 
to-day in our books is Cordylanthus filifolius Nutt. 
Dr. Asa Gray is known to have held opinions similar, at least 
measurably, to Mr. Bentham’s, but his fine tact early led him to see 
that such license, if justified in opinion, had better be exceedingly 
restricted in practice. Indeed, his argument that a name is but a 
name, and no part of the description of an organism, has been 
much used by advocates of a rigid priority, for if the name, even if 
descriptive, is to be considered no part of the description, it matters 
nothing at all if it be meaningless or even false—perhaps even the 
incongruity may be an aid to memory, as in a case mentioned by an 
entomologist friend, Sesia Schmidttiformis, where the ludicrous idea 
presented to the mind stamps the name of the species firmly upon 
it. In the life of humanity this kind of false naming gives no sort 
of trouble. We have all known ‘‘ Blacks’’ who were remarkably 
white, and ‘‘ Whites’’ who were at least dingy, yet none of them 
seem to suffer inconvenience, or apply to the courts for relief. 
_ The objections of purists against barbarous compounds, names 
from the vernacular, etc., etc., may be very easily waived. The 
‘‘classical’’ terminology of any of the sciences would probably 
appear very barbarous to Cicero, and the most vigorous sticklers in 
this regard are usually those who, having acquired late “a little 
Latin and less Greek,” wish to make of that little as great a display 
as possible. 
It has been gravely argued that priority being a question of time, 
does not apply, for instance, to names on the same page, which 
being printed at one stroke of the press, are therefore simultaneous. 
The absurdity of this argument may readily be seen {rom the fact 
that not only the page, but a certain number preceding or following 
it, varying from three in folio to 23 in 24mo., are so printed. 
The ‘‘ Citation of Authors”’ brings up a whole field of vexed ques- 
tions, none of them of very great importance, except to the feelings 
of the said authors. In the case of well-known species these citations 
are dropped, in popular and semi-popular publications, and as names 
become settled they will probably at length lose their sometimes 
unwieldy appendices in the more scientific. They probably served 
