Letter's, Announcements, (SfC. 381 



Smithsonian Institution, Wasliington, D. C, 

 May 14, 1880. 



SiRs^ — I wish to thank you for your very kind review of 

 my ' Ornithological Explorations in Kamtschatka and the 

 Commander Islands/ At the same time I take the liberty 

 to protest against a remark in the footnote [antea, p. 202), 

 referring to me as "« stickler for correct names" in con- 

 nection with " corrections " of a philological nature. It is 

 true that I am endeavouring to use names which are correct 

 ornithologically , and in that respect I may be '^a stickler;" 

 but my stand in regard to philological corrections of names 

 already given, is clearly expressed in the following quotation 

 from a paper written by me five years ago : — 



" As to the rules of the nomenclature^ it seems to me that 

 the best are those which present the smallest number of 

 exceptions, and which, once adopted, give the least occasion 

 for disputes. I therefore propose to use the oldest available 

 name in every case, where it can be proved, and to spell it 

 exactly as it was spelled when published for the first time, 

 notwithstanding incorrect derivation, barbarous offspring, 

 error facti, &c. 



" The significance of a name, by means of the sound and 

 the appearance, is to give a conception of the named object 

 as being difl'erent from all other objects. If it, at the same 

 time, can be formed so that it indicates one or another chief 

 property of the object, then it is the better. The main point 

 is, however, that we, by hearing or seeing the name, will get 

 an idea of the object as being difl'erent from any other. 



" That names which do not signify anything cause no 

 inconvenience worth mentioning is evident from the num- 

 berless specific names, indicating a quality common to all 

 the species within the same genus, e. g. cinereus, fuscus, &c. 

 It may be rather tedious that the names are incorrect ; but 

 the simply endless number of incorrect names with which we 

 daily work without feeling especially troubled, and which 

 probably no one intends to change or correct, shows better 

 than anything else how unimportant the corrections and 



