82 THE PEOCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



shells. Yet it must not be imagined that this is due to a fault 

 in the observers or to any recklessness in the multiplication of 

 species. In some cases, it has been from the necessary difficulties 

 attending scientific observations in a new country. I don't mean 

 as to synonomy, or the description by two persons each 

 unaware of the other's labours, but the necessarily incomplete 

 manner in which observations must be made in the first instance. 

 Thus an explorer may find one or two specimens of a shell which 

 is very common and subject to great variation. Another may 

 find the variety and regard it a species. No one can blame the 

 observer. He is doing what is best for the interest of science. 

 He remarks certain differences, and, if they are valid and 

 important, he has no right to assume that the species with which 

 he has to deal is specifically one with some other. He should in 

 the interest of science state his suspicions and point out the 

 resemblance, and when intermediate varieties have been found, 

 but not until then, the group should be united, and the 

 variation described. The material for doing this is rapidly 

 accumulating in our hands. And perhaps as it does so, it may 

 not be out of place to remark that the greatest consideration and 

 respect should be shown to the pioneers of science. It is a great 

 temptation to young observers to glorify themselves at the 

 expense of the mistakes of their predecessors, or on the superior 

 knowledge which has accumulated since their time. But they 

 little realize how very large is the debt that we owe to those men, 

 and how their labours, incomplete or faulty as they may have 

 been, represent an amount of care, study, industry, and zeal that 

 we cannot easily command at the present. Perhaps I may be 

 pardoned for transcribing a remark of Dr. Philip P. Carpenter 

 on this subject, which will have all the more weight as it comes 

 from one of the most eminent conchologists of later times. He 

 says, " An instructive lesson in candour and forbearance may be 

 learnt by comparing together the works of any two naturalists of 

 equal celebrity, or by comparing either of these with the types. 

 With the best desire for accuracy and the greatest care, it is 

 hardly possible for an author to describe so that his readers shall 



