48 Allen, " Truth versus Error.'[ [j* n k 



which Canon XL was sustained by the participants in the dis- 

 cussion, one only speaking in opposition. Mr. Elliot would cer- 

 tainly have derived small encouragement for any hope he may be 

 entertaining that Canon XL may be changed to accord with his 

 wishes by either the present A. O. U. Committee or any other 

 A. O. U. Committee before whom, for some years at least, the 

 matter is likely to come. 



Mr. Elliot has given at length his reasons for standing "firmly 

 for grammatical purity and orthographical correctness." I here 

 add the views of a few ' leading authorities ' who have equal right 

 to an opinion in the case, and who are not members of the 

 A. O. U. Committee, nor, with one exception, even American 

 ornithologists. 



In 1883, the great French botanist, Alphonse de Candolle, in 

 his article 60 of his revised ' Lois de la Nomenclature Botanique,' 

 originally published in 1867, says: ''A generic name should 

 subsist just as it was made, though a purely typographical error 

 may be corrected. The termination of a Latin specific name 

 may be changed to bring it into agreement with its generic 

 name." He even accepts hybrid names, which he formerly 

 suppressed, showing the tendency of his mind on this point 

 under the influence of long experience. 



The late eminent American botanist, Prof. Asa Gray, stated in 

 •one of his later publications that " the tendency among working 

 naturalists is to retain names in spite of faults." This statement 

 of fact, it may be noted, was made long before the promulgation 

 of Canon XL. 



Dr. David S. Jordan, President of Leland Stanford University, 

 and the leading ichthyologist of America, in reviewing the A. O. 

 U. Code and Check-List in 1886 (Auk, III, p. 394), in comment- 

 ing indirectly on Canon XL, said: "An illustration of this may 

 be taken from the last Check-List of Dr. Coues [1882]. This 

 work is in many respects most valuable. In it, however, so much 

 learning and labor has been expended in the mending and 

 remodelling of scientific names, as fairly to bring purism in that 

 regard to reductio ad absnrdum. Hence the Committee on the 

 new Code, with Dr. Coues at its head, now declare that ' a name 

 is only a name, and has no necessary meaning ' and therefore no 



