INTRODUCTION. 3j^ 



the practice itself must be ivholly abandoned. We 

 invoke the attention of zoologists to the subject, and 

 ask their aid in endeavorin"; to eflfect a chan2:e. 



Havmg spoken thus freely of some of the evils 

 which impede the progress of zoology, alluded to 

 their causes, and suggested such remedies as are 

 practicable in the department "which we have under- 

 taken, — having, moreover, condemned certain prac- 

 tices -which prominent zoologists of the time receive 

 with favor, — we are quite prepared to be subjected 

 to the test of our own rules. It may be, that we have 

 not been governed by the prmciples which we recom- 

 mend to others. Of this we leave others to judge. 

 If it should be so, however, it will not detract from 

 their utility, but only show that we have erred with 

 the best intentions, and that instances often arise in 

 which not only ourselves, but the best-informed zoolo- 

 gists may form incorrect conclusions. We do not 



6th, 7tli, and Sth vol mines of the Transactions of the American Philosoplii- 

 cal Society, more than one hundred instances occur of the use of specific 

 terms derived from the names of the author's friends and correspondents, 

 and these mostly applied to the species of one family of mollusks. In a 

 memoir in the seventh volume of the Journal of the Pliiladelphia Academy 

 of Natural Sciences, the name of an English botanist is applied in the 

 same manner no less than twelve tunes in as many different genera of 

 shells. The geologists, we fear, have been seduced by these bad exam- 

 ples, for one of the most distinguished of them, in a memoir in the Trans- 

 actions of the American Geological Association, having occa.sion to pro- 

 pose five new species, has " dedicated " four of them to other geologists. 

 Names derived from countries, moimtams, rivers, &c., which are also 

 objectionable, are used with great freedom, and numerous examples of 

 them occur in the same memoirs. 

 VOL. 1. 10 



