VOL. III. | Nomenclature. 261 
in discussions of them to a study of the organisms themselves, 
especially as such study may result in altering the bounds of genera 
and involving a new set of names, for perhaps few botanists, if they 
remember the mutations of genera in the last hundred years, largely 
due to our increasing knowledge, will consider that even their own 
_ efforts will be able to put nomenclature on a perfectly stable footing. 
The annoyance arising from homonyms in synonymy is com- 
paratively small, but as between zoology and botany they are a 
crying evil which overshadows all the others. Even so long ago 
as 1846, when Agassiz wrote the index to his Nomenclator Zool- 
ogicus he made the statement that the rectification of these names 
in zoology and as between zoology and botany would necessitate 
the sacrifice of almost half the generic names made in recent times, 
and it must be apparent to anyone that the inconvenience of writing 
concerning an insect feeding upon a plant of the same name is in- 
finitely greater than that arising from the occasional revival of an 
old homonym, especially as by the recent tendency of science 
genera are more apt to be consolidated than divided. 
The law of priority is apparently the only way of securing uni- 
formity, yet it is repugnant to our sense of justice to reckon as of 
equal value in systematic science the work of careful and conscien- 
tious botanists and of the other far too numerous ones who, without 
herbaria or books of reference, record their vague descriptions, 
often identifiable only by the process of exclusion, in obscure 
journals or trade catalogues. There is no other branch of human 
knowledge which deliberately encourages incompetence. 
We pay a dear price for uniformity when we have to accept 
such work as that of Necker and Rafinesque, and to dread the day 
when some Mexican may take it into his head to identify the plants 
of Hernandez’ Historia Plantarum Nove Hispaniz, and give us 
‘some hundreds of names like 7: yonpilihuizpatli Te epuzcululle, for 
instance. 
A CorrEcTION.—I included in the additions to True’s Check- 
list (in this issue) a reference to Am. Rept. Dept. Agr. 1887, p- 
435, as the place where the name Sorex richardsonii was revived. 
This is a mistake as S. richardsonit was revived, so far as I know, 
in Merriam’s Geog. Dist. of Life in N. Am. (Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 
vii, April 13, 1892, p- 25-) The species referred to in Annual Re- 
‘port for 1887 is S. Forsteri, which should not appear 1n the list of © 
additions as it is given in True’s list. TEe., 
