250 BULLETIN OF TILE 



reference to those which prevail in the order to which the species under 

 consideration belong; and to resist steadily the temptation to multiply 

 names ; for it is practically very difficult to expunge a species founded on 

 an error of judgment or observation. The state of the British flora proves 

 not only this, but further, that one such error leads to many more of the 

 like kind; students are led to overestimate inconstant characters, to take 

 a narrow view of the importance and end of botany, and to throw away 

 time upon profitless discussions about the differences between infinitely 

 variable firms of plants, of whose identity really learned botanists have no 

 doubt whatever. There is, further, an inherent tendency in every one 

 occupied with specialties to exaggerate the value of his materials and 



labors 



" To the amateur these questions are perhaps of very trilling impor- 

 tance, but they are of great moment to the naturalist who regards accu- 

 rately defined floras as the means of investigating the great phenomena 

 of vegetation ; he has to seek the truth amid errors of observation and 

 judgment, and the resulting chaos of synonomy which has been accumu- 

 lated by thoughtless aspirants to the questionable honor of being the first 

 to name a species. The time, however, has happily passed when it was 

 considered to be an honor to be the namcr of a plant ; the botanist who 

 has the true interests of science at heart not only feels that the thrusting 

 of an uncalled-for synonvme into the nomenclature of science is an ex- 

 posure of his own ignorance and deserves censure, but that a wider range 

 of knowledge and a greater depth of study are required to prove those 

 dissimilar forms to be identical, which any superficial observer can sep- 

 arate by words an 1 a name." 



The above remarks are as strictly applicable to zoology and zoologists 

 as they have ever been to botany and to botanists. The present state of 

 ornithology, and the tendency the majority of ornithologists have to 

 multiply species on improper grounds, find here a fitting rebuke. 



Part IV. 



List of the Winter Birds of East Florida, with Annotations.* 



TURDID.S3. 



it Turdus migratorius Linn€. "Romx. 



Seen daily, sometimes in considerable flocks, till about the first of 



March, after which time few were observed. It was shot by me at 



* An asterisk (*) prefixed to the name of a species indicates that it is a constant 



resident; an obelisk (t), that it is a winter visitor. 



