BY J. DOUGLAS OGILBY. 19 
herpetologists as Duméril, Bibron, Bell, and many others ; 
and I submit that those authors who would change it to 
Cinosternum are acting beyond their rights. By all means, let 
the current laws be strictly enforced, but at the same time, 
we must remember, in justice to the great fathers of binomial 
nomenclature, that those laws, admirable though they be, 
are not retrospective. 
I have now entered my protest against the abuses referred 
to above, and shall never willingly revert to the subject again. 
It only remains, therefore, to add that I am fighting against 
what I regard as a pernicious system, and not against those 
who, with every justice, think differently to me, some of whom 
are my personal friends : and because I wish to assist by ever 
so little in the purification of zodlogical nomenclature from 
the follies and foibles which are making the noblest study 
under the sun, the study of Nature, a by-word to the unthink- 
ing multitude. 
Since writing the above, I have come across a note,* 
which, in a most remarkable manner, bears out my contentions 
as emphasized above, and may be usefully reproduced here. 
“The law of priority is quite clear in regard to the treatment 
of such cases,t but some naturalists object to have it enforced 
on the ground of expediency, and because it would be apt to 
create confusion. Doubtless, such would be the temporary 
result in this and all similar instances when errors are corrected 
which have been continued by writers who have simply followed 
each other without making independent investigations; but 
the confusion is originally caused by those who commit errors, 
not by those who correct them. . . . It may be incon- 
venient for those who have become familiar with any special 
group to have their ideas of its nomenclature disturbed by 
showing that errors have been committed and then knowingly 
eontinued, but that would be a most indefensible reason to 
advance why these should not be corrected. . oe, Opps 
servatism is an excellent principle when it serves as a bulwark 
against the commission of abuses, but it is a most baneful 
principle when it is exerted against the correction of errors.”’ 
Eliott, Monograph of the Pittide. 
*See “Jordan and Evermann, Fishes of North and Middle America, 
p. 946.” 
;That is—the substitution of a correct but hitherto ignored name 
for an erroneous but commonly accepted one. 
