NOMENCLATURE OF AMERICAN BIRDS. 135 



nomenclature based on common fairness and on 

 common-sense, and stable because above the reach 

 of individual whim or choice, is as necessary to 

 success in this kind of work as a sharp scalpel is 

 to good work in anatomy. So long as no rules 

 superior to the caprice of the individual or the tra- 

 ditions of some museum are recognized, so long is 

 systematic work a mere burlesque, and our schemes 

 of classification anything but a mirror of Nature. 



But besides the positive advances made by the 

 ornithologists, from which others may profit when 

 the time comes, there is something for us to learn 

 from the results of their less fortunate experiments. 

 An illustration of this may be taken from the last 

 "Check-List" of Dr. Coues. This work is in 

 many respects most valuable. In it, however, so 

 much learning has been expended in the mending 

 and remodelling of scientific names, as fairly to 

 bring purism in this regard to a reductio ad ab- 

 surdum. Hence the Committee on the new code, 

 with Dr. Coues at its head, are forced to declare 

 that *' a name is only a name, and has no neces- 

 sary meaning," and therefore no necessarily cor- 

 rect orthography. Its only proper spelling is the 

 way its author first spelled it. After this experi- 

 ence the work of strengthening the lame and halt- 

 ing words is hardly likely to be continued in other 

 fields of science. 



Another illustration may be drawn from the ex- 

 cessive multiplication of genera, — a stage through 

 which ornithology has naturally passed, and which 

 other sciences, profiting from this experience, may 

 possibly be able to avoid. 



