LETTER 259 



names, but not in the ease of Latin ones. Hence the inextricable 

 confusion in which the scientific nomenclature of our British birds 

 is now involved, through the change of names continually proposed by 

 those who, without disrespect, may be termed " sticklers for priority." 

 The Editors are good enough to suggest that I would do better " to 

 agitate for priority in scientific names rather than for priority in the 

 spelling of colloquial names for which no dates are fixed nor rules in 

 existence." But it is no answer to a question on one subject to ask 

 the writer to turn his attention to another ; nor is it accurate to say 

 that in the spelling of colloquial names no dates are fixed nor rules in 

 existence. In the case of '' Dunling " I fixed the date 1530-4, and one 

 of the many valuable objects of the Oxford Dictionary, as everyone 

 knows, is to indicate the earliest mention of English words with authori- 

 tative examples of their use. As to the existence of rules, I have 

 already indicated where they may be looked for. But I have no desire 

 to labour the point. I have merely thrown out a suggestion for an 

 emendation in spelling which has commended itself to others besides 

 myself, and for reasons which appear to me to be sufficiently convincing. 



J. E. Harting. 



[Mr. Harting's letter is an excellent example of what he deprecates 

 in others, and it seems to us that he fails entirely to carry out to their 

 logical conclusion the principles he advocates. In Zoology we now 

 have a date agreed upon by the representative naturalists of the world 

 as our starting point in nomenclature, namely the publication of the 

 tenth edition of the Systema Naturce, of Linnaeus. By the general 

 adoption of the first names given to each species from this time onward, 

 uniformity of nomenclature can, and in time undoubtedly will, be 

 attained. Yet we find Mr. Harting, with an inconsistency which is 

 almost sublime, actually ascribing the chaos in nomenclature, which 

 'has been caused by the absence of a generally accepted rule, to " the 

 sticklers for priority" — that is, those who obey it now that it is in 

 existence ! Still further, he speaks with approval of those who have 

 made ornithology more confusing, by altering the spelling of generic 

 and specific names arbitrarily, in accordance with their own ideas as 

 to the derivation of the name, and threatens to make confusion worse 

 confounded by suggesting fresh alterations of his own. 



Let us say that we recognize that most of the alterations mentioned 

 would be for the better, if Zoology were a subordinate branch of 

 Philology. But it is nothing of the kind, and any trifling sesthotic 

 gain would be outweighed a thousand times by the disadvantages cf 

 added confusion in practice, No one can read through a list of scientific 

 names without seeing that many have been framed in defiance of all 



