si Correspondence. IQ'? 



engaged in a modest way in the popularization of science, both with the 

 pen and in familiar talks to vny 'granger' neighbors, and think I can 

 pretty correctly gauge the intelligence of this class of people, and speak 

 from personal knowledge with regard to the way in which scientific 

 names are received by them. I believe Mr. Hornaday would receive some 

 light on this subject if he should hear, as I have often heard, a group of 

 Iowa farmers discussing the damage done to their fruit trees by the 

 TortricidiB, speaking of each species by its correct scientific name. If he 

 will consult the columns of any modern agricultural paper, and compare 

 it with a copy of the same paper, or any similar one, published fifty years 

 ago, or if he will attend a Farmers' Institute and hear the discussions (by 

 the farmers themselves, not the lecturers) on the correct proportion of 

 carbonaceous and nitrogenous elements that go to make up a proper feed 

 for stock, or the ratio of nitrates and phosphates for a certain special 

 fertilizer, he may perhaps discover that scientific terms have few terrors 

 for the modern farmer, at least. What he says about the modern editor 

 I am inclined to think is correct. 



Among other things, Mr. Hornaday makes the following remarkable 

 statement : " If I can read signs aright, the gap between our really 

 scientific zoologists (speaking generally) and the unscientific public is 

 growing wider and wider, day by day." I am glad of the first clause, 

 which is a saving one, for I am convinced that he does not read the signs 

 aright. I am fully persuaded that at no time in the world's history has 

 the gap been so narrow as it is to-day; and it is narrowing all the time. 

 If it were otherwise, it would indeed be a discouraging outlook, when we 

 consider the long and illustrious line of popular scientists, from Agassiz 

 down to those of the present day, who have written and talked to the 

 American people on scientific subjects. If all this not only counts for 

 nothing, but is actually a negative quantity, it is high time the scientists 

 stopped their popular publications, and allowed themselves and the public 

 to resume their former relations, which, according to Mr. Hornaday, 

 must have been closer than the present ones. But, thank Heaven, this is 

 unnecessary. The "Tom Jonses " and "Bill Smiths" who "pay the 

 freight" do not need that any one, on their account, should demand 

 "milk for babes" instead of " meat for strong men." They do not hold 

 themselves on so low a plane of intelligence that they cannot understand 

 ordinary scientific names and terms. 



Assuming for the moment that any new discovery in the Animal 

 Kingdom is christened with a vulgar name as well as the scientific one, 

 how is the general public to get at the former any more easily than the 

 latter? In any case the description must accompany the name, and any 

 person who can understand that would have little dilTiculty with the 

 scientific name. The points of excellence of the last are that it is given 

 by one man, and is immediately published in all parts of the civilized 

 world, and will never be changed (at least recent ones will not), and it 

 applies to one animal, and to one only. Not so with a vulgar name. This 

 25 



