78 INTRODUCTION. 
impropriety in this usage ; for the naturalist who had 
labored for years in elucidating the history of a particu- 
lar class of animals, without any other reward than 
that arising from the gratification which the pursuit 
itself furnished, might well deserve to have his name 
connected with that department of knowledge which 
he had promoted. Indeed, there was acknowledged 
to be a beautiful propriety in distinguishing a genus 
of plants by the name of Linnosus, the great reformer 
of botany, or a species of birds by that of "Wilson, 
their eloquent and graceful historian ; and in other 
similar examples. Names derived from persons even 
of much less celebrity as naturalists might not be pro- 
ductive of any practical inconvenience, and the custom 
was therefore so far sanctioned as to be admitted as an 
occasional exception to a general rule. 1 It was, how- 
ever, a great error to permit any departure from the 
original rule, and its infraction has been followed by 
consequences very much to be regretted. In our 
own country, where there is but little of that con- 
servative feeling -which tends to the preservation of 
those usages and principles which past experience has 
proved to be wise and useful, and where innovations 
of all kinds are entered upon rashly, and often, as it 
would seem, from a mere love of change, and where 
the influence of the personal example of the most 
1 The exception is thus stated by Mr. Swainson, in his System of No- 
menclature : " Species may be occasionally named after persons, provided 
•hey have been distinguished in that branch of zoology.'' 
