'• TYPES " IN NATt'RAL HISTORY. 283 



be based on such a type form as he says I have not defined. The 

 criticism in this form is obviously unanswerable, but the critic begs the 

 question. Where in my writings (they are not numerous) will he find 

 that I have ever regarded a stable nomenclature as being of anything 

 more than a trifiing importance ? It is, after all, a mere matter of 

 convenience, and, in my humble judgment, convenience is not for a 

 moment to be compared in value with scientific truth. I entirely agree 

 with him that only omniscience can produce a completely fixed 

 nomenclature, and if I am asked with surprise, "Do not you, then, 

 regard a fixed nomenclature as a thing to be aimed at ? " I can only 

 reply, " Certainly, just as I regard the eradication of sin, or the 

 elimination of disease, and I consider them all three about equally 

 distant." The putting of convenience before fact may be practical, 

 but surely the putting of fact before convenience ought not to be 

 stigmatised as " unscientific." And, after all, as the miracle of ill- 

 luck has not occurred, the cases in which specific nomenclature would 

 have to be altered by the interchange of a specific and a varietal name 

 are so few that even the inconvenience is practically negligeable, A 

 further difficulty suggested by Mr. Prout is purely artificial. In cases 

 where the two sexes have been named simultaneously and difterently 

 under the mistaken impression that they were dift'erent species, it is 

 surely a recognised principle that the name of the $ is retained for 

 both sexes, the ? being regarded as the higher organism, since it is 

 in some cases capable of unassisted reproduction ; in cases where only 

 one sex was described, as in L'ajnlio t^ara, the name naturally belongs 

 to both sexes, and it is only in a case where one or both sexes were 

 described from an unusual form, which, but for this accident, would 

 have been regarded as an aberrational one, that any change of nomen- 

 clature would be involved, the first name assigned to the forjn which 

 subsequently proved to be the most widely distributed being retained 

 as the specific, the other, though earlier, being regarded as a varietal 

 or aberrational appellation. 



A moment's digression here. It will be seen on reference to my 

 Introduction, page 3, that I have expressed myself as most humbly 

 open to correction with regard to the application of my principles to 

 particular cases, and with regard to I'oli/oiiimatiis Icanm I appear to be 

 at fault. My statement as to the first described form was taken from 

 Tutt's Ihitixh lUitterfiiea,^. 174, and so certain did I feel of Mr. Tutt's 

 accuracy in a matter of this kind, that I did not verify the reference. 

 Herr Gillmer, however, who has written a critique of my work, 

 extending over several numbers of the Societas Kntoniolonica, and who 

 is about to do me the further honour of translating it into German, 

 has lately written to me quoting Rottemburg's description of the ? as 

 being dark-brown, with a border of orange spots, in which case, of 

 course, the name Icarus would, on my own principle, hold good, and 

 Ale.a'a must once more be dropped. But even though this particular 

 case should fall through, the principle is in no way att'ected. 



It was not in ignorance of what is meant by the " literary 

 type " (as both Dr. Chapman and Mr. Prout seem to have supposed) 

 that I wrote as I did, and I still claim for my theory what I have 

 claimed all along. I claim that it is logical, because specific 

 nomenclature, if it be anything more than a matter of labels, is 

 the first step in classification, and it is more logical to treat all 



