336 LIFE AT DOWN. .^TAT. 33-45. [1849, 



Lamarck has violated that law, one cannot adopt his name. 

 It is, nevertheless, highly conducive to accurate indication to 

 append to the (oldest) specific name one good reference to a 

 standard work, especially to 2i figure, with an accompanying 

 synonym if necessary. This method may be cumbrous, but 

 cumbrousness is a far less evil than uncertainty. 



It, moreover, seems hardly possible to carry out the 

 priority principle, v/ithout the historical aid afforded by ap- 

 pending the author's name to the specific one. If I, di priority 

 man, called a species C. £>., it implies that C. D. is the oldest 

 name that I know of ; but in order that you and others may 

 judge of the propriety of that name, you must ascertain when, 

 and by whom, the name was first coined. Now, if to the 

 specific name C. D., I append the name A. B., of its first 

 describer, I at once furnish you with the clue to the dates 

 when, and the book in which, this description was given, and 

 I thus assist you in determining whether C D. be really the 

 oldest, and therefore the correct, designation. 



I do, however, admit that the priority principle (excellent 

 as it is) has a tendency, when the author's name is added, to 

 encourage vanity and slovenly work. I think, however, that 

 much might be done to discourage those obscure and unsatis- 

 factory definitions of which you so justly complain, by ivriting 

 do7vn the practice. Let the better disposed naturalists com- 

 bine to make a formal protest against all vague, loose, and 

 inadequate definitions of (supposed) new species. Let a 

 committee (say of the British Association) be appointed to 

 prepare a sort of Class List of the various modern works in 

 which new species are described, arranged in order of merit. 

 The lowest class would contain the worst examples of the 

 kind, and their authors would thus be exposed to the obloquy 

 which they deserve, and be gibbeted in terror e7n for the edifi- 

 cation of those who may come after. 



I have thus candidly stated my views (I hope intelligibly) 

 of what seems best to be done in the present transitional and 

 dangerous state of systematic zoology. Innumerable labour- 

 ers, many of them crotchety and half-educated, are rushing 



