696 president's addkkss, 



rule is, however, sometimes difficult to apply in practice, and it 



will be sufficient to draw attention to a judicious criticism of it."^ 



The question of priority of names resolves itself into two parts. 



1. Are the newly disinterred names actually the earliest given, 

 ^.e., nearest to 1737 or 1753? (or whatever the date or dates 

 finally agreed upon). 



2. Do they represent good genera and species ? In other words, 

 can they be accepted by a competent monographer 1 



I deny absolutely the right of a man to alter nomenclature for 

 literary reasons. Alteration must be made with a due sense of 

 resi^onsibility, and we must be assured that an author proposing 

 a change has at least critically examined the genus or species. 



Many alterations in recent years are, as far as I can understand, 

 purely literary and are of that mechanical character which could 

 be entrusted to any educated person having a leaning towards 

 botanical names. Rather than entrust the matter to such hands, 

 it would be far better to pay a respectable news-cutting agency to 

 hunt up the records, the evidence obtained to be sifted and 

 weighed by competent authority, say a Botanical Society. 



We must take all reasonable steps to prevent the resurrection 

 of a number of wortliless synonyms, and these may be further 

 duplicated by the addition of new names. 



AVe do not want botany turned into librarian's work. The best 

 systematic work is done in the herbarium and garden, and the 

 botanist may actuall}^ waste his time by spending too much of it 

 in a library, disinterring long-forgotten names like a ghoul. And 

 even if he does produce a new-old name that he offers for our 

 acceptance, let him put it into a l^otanical suspense account for a 

 period in order that, if we use it at all, we may have some 

 guarantee that we have reached finality, and that the new-old 

 discovery may not be superseded by a newer-older find. 



Some of the ingenious research expended on ascertaining, from 

 circumstantial evidence, the dates of publication of genera and 

 species would be ludicrous if it were not lamentable. 



* ' The tifty yeuis' limit in Nomenclature,' Journ. Bot. xxxvi. 90, 



