80 INTRODUCTION. 



of the object described, must be burtliened by an ad- 

 ditional clause establishing the identity of the person 

 commemorated. 



Another evil, of a still more grave character, in- 

 asmuch as it aifects the reputation of those concern- 

 ed, has resulted ; the motive of these friendly compU- 

 ments has been questioned, and they have been sup- 

 posed to arise more from a desire to gratify a certain 

 small vanity than from any expectation of promoting 

 thereby the advance of zoology. We do not ourselves 

 coincide in this last opinion, because we know too 

 well the honorable sentiments of some who have fallen 

 into the practice which we condemn, to suppose that 

 they are actuated by motives so unworthy. We be- 

 lieve, on the contrary, that they have adopted it from 

 an amiable wish to gratify their friends, without hav- 

 ing sufficiently reflected upon the abuses of which it is 

 susceptible, or upon the serious objections to which it 

 is hable. But we cannot approve the practice or pass 

 it by without reprehension, because the motives of 

 those who have adopted it are correct. We are con- 

 vinced that it is itself erroneous ; we know that its 

 abuses have become intolerable, and we think that 

 they ought forthwith to be abated.^ To effect this, 



1 We do not wish to be understood to imply, that American zoologists 

 alone are obnoxious to tliis charge, but only that tliis reprehensible custom 

 has been adopted in a more wholesale manner in this coimtry than in 

 Europe. In proof of this we will mention some of the most remarkable 

 examples. In a series of memoirs by one author, pubLshed in the 5th, 



