THE CAXADIAX ENTOMOLOGIST. 205 



interest in the species to which they affix names. The two methods of 

 reference to authors would lead, therefore, on the one hand, to hasty and 

 vague descriptions of species, on the other to arbitrary and unnecessary 

 changes in genera. Such ideas are really aspersions on the motives of 

 the great professors of unremunerative labor, upon whom science chiefly 

 depends for her advancement. The good and true laborers are many ; 

 the small and mean minds, who feel honored at being quoted even in 

 synonymy, are few. I think, therefore, that the harm to be done by 

 adhering to either of the two methods is greatly exaggerated. 



I would prefer to believe that the somewhat passionate line of argu- 

 ment occasionally indulged in, arises rather from a mental fault which is 

 too common in this age, which prevails in all classes and in all pursuits 

 — the undue importance given to the claiming of supposed rights, over 

 the performance of fixed and definite duties. Of clamor for rights, even 

 in countries where there is no oppressing class, we hear a great deal ; of 

 appeals for the rigid keeping of obligations we hear very little. 



// is tJie privilege, with the facilities for publication now afforded by 

 learned societies, of every careful observer of nature to contribute valuable 

 material for the progress of the branch of science which he is capable of 

 cultivating. // ii> his duty to put his contributions to knowledge in such 

 a form as to be most easily available to his brothers in science. Whether 

 his name remains connected permanently with his observation or not is a 

 matter of small importance ; he has done his duty in increasing the 

 power of work of his colleagues. 



In this connection I would observe that it is only in descriptive 

 Natural History, the lowest and. most routine work that a man of science 

 has to perform, that any association of names with results is possible. In 

 all other and higher departments of knowledge, such as Newton with 

 gravitation, Young with light, Franklin with atmospheric electricity, 

 Faraday, Henry, Arago, Anjpere and Jacobi with dynamical electricity, 

 Agassiz with glacial action ; or, to exemplify from our own departments, 

 Linnaeus, Jussieu,Cuvier and (Teofifroy,all these men are historically eminent 

 for their labors,far more than for attachingtheir names to the objects of their 

 study. With such examples of high and honest effort, to be imitated by us in 

 proportion to our respective abilities, it is surely an ignoble ambition, and 

 certainly an uncommon one, that would aim at distinction by having the 

 name printed in association with a weed, or a bug, or a bone. 



The multitude of new objects is the great curse of Natural History 

 at the present time. When they are nearly all described and named, so 



