AGASSIZ'S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 49 



This is quite too straight-laced, and gives rise to many 

 awkward forms, or 



" Sesquipedalia verba 

 Vel nocitura sono, guttur laesura loquentis," 



which is not worth while to encounter needlessly, for the sake 

 of mere technical uniformity, at least when they may be 

 avoided by some liberty of choice in the mode of prolonga- 

 tion. 



The proposition, D. of the British Committee, which directs 

 that the name of the original propounder of a species should 

 adhere to it when transferred to a different genus, is warmly 

 defended by some naturalists in England and, in a modified 

 form, in our own country also. Few naturalists are now so 

 well qualified to judge of the practical operation of this 

 scheme as Professor Agassiz. He declares his opinion that, if 

 received, " it will introduce horrible and remediless confu- 

 sion," and that no possible multiplication of synonymy is 

 likely to lead to so many difficulties as this new practice. He 

 therefore strenuously opposes it by arguments drawn from the 

 precepts and practice of Linnaeus, who meant the specific 

 name to be subordinate to the generic, and never intended it 

 to be inferred that he who applied to a plant or animal a 

 certain name was therefore its discoverer, or even its first 

 systematic describer. He affirms that Linnaeus would have 

 expressly rejected " Tyrannus crinitus^ Linn. (sj9.)," were 

 the innovation proposed in his day, and have written T. crini- 

 tus, Swains., had he thought best to approve the division of 

 his genus Muscicapa. On the other hand, if he disapproved 

 the division, we may add, he would not have thanked a con- 

 temporary for making him seem to adopt it. The hardship 

 is still greater when the question is not of the division of an 

 old genus, but of the proper place of a species among ad- 

 mitted genera, when it is surely improper to cite an author as 

 referring to one genus, while he expressly maintains that it 

 belongs to another. In fact, the remedy is much worse than 

 the disease which the English doctors would cure. Linnaeus 

 maintains that he is the true naturalist who understands 



