Nomenclature of Ornithology. 183 



plicity to deter the student from prosecuting his researches in the 

 science ; when we see them so tenacious of the very form of their 

 nomenclature as to resist any alterations in names or disposition, 

 even where errour has been detected and universally acknowledged 

 more willing to perpetuate confusion in our ideas of nature it- 

 self, than to alter the terms of that nomenclature which they 

 have erected into so important an idol — when we see, in short, 

 nature thus made to bend to the views of man, it becomes every 

 one to enter his protest, however feeble, against doctrines so 

 pregnant with danger to the views of the student, and so subver- 

 sive of the sound principles that regulate the science. 



Were it the fact, as is asserted, that every species in Orni- 

 thology is likely to be formed into a genus ; or, to take a more 

 just view of the subject, were it the case that all the species 

 are so far distinguished from each other as to admit no grouping 

 together, and that it becomes necessary to confer on every species 

 a generick name and character which will at once point out 

 its own place in nature, and its distinction from every other 

 known group, I can not decide otherwise than that, while so 

 paramount an object is gained, it would be but a feeble objec- 

 tion to assert that names are in consequence multiplied. He who 

 is deterred from prosecuting his researches into any department 

 of natural science by those technical difficulties that may impede 

 his earlier steps, but which when surmounted will be found in 

 the end to accelerate his progress, is not likely to add much to 

 the value of science, and his recession from her paths is not mucli 

 to be regretted. The same difficulties attend every object of 

 human research. Take any subject of inquiry ; take language 

 itself for instance, and say, will any man shut himself out from 

 the knowledge of the history, of the poetry, of the philosophy of 

 any clime or people, from a dread of the innumerable terms 

 which he must acquire before he attains the perfect use of that 

 instrument which is to guide him to his information. Knowledge 

 does not come to us intuitively, nor is it to be seized upon, 

 as it were, by storm, and at the first approach. Our advance 

 must be gradual, and our ultimate success attained chiefly by 

 assiduity and perseverance. The true question to be decided on 



