LIFE OF FLOWER 43 



ceptibly nearer the attainment of uniformity in the matter 

 of biological nomenclature, the reply must be that the 

 subject is in a more unsatisfactory state than ever, and 

 the desired end as far off. It is perfectly true, indeed, 

 that a section of the students of the systematic side of 

 zoology have agreed among themselves to employ only 

 such names as they believe to be the earliest, quite irre- 

 spective of the obscurity of their origin or the rule that 

 such names should be compounded according to classic 

 usage. When, however, we take a broader survey of 

 the field of biology, we find that, almost to a man, 

 the anatomists, the palaeontologists, the geologists, the 

 evolutionists, the students of geographical distribution, 

 and other writers who discuss the subject from aspects 

 other than the purely systematic, adhere to the more 

 conservative side in respect of nomenclature. Moreover, 

 even if this were not the case, we should be but little 

 forwarder, seeing that in works like Darwin's Origin 

 of Species and Wallace's Geographical Distribution of 

 Mammals which must remain classical so long as 

 zoology lasts as a science the older style of nomen- 

 clature is used. Consequently, even if the proposed 

 emendations and changes were universally adopted, the 

 names employed by these and other contemporary 

 writers would still have to be learnt and committed to 

 memory by all zoological students ; so that, instead of 

 one series of names, as would have been practically the 

 case had Flower's proposal been loyally adopted by his 

 contemporaries and followers, we are compelled to know 

 and remember a double series. 



Whether in the end there will not be a reversion 

 to the judicial and temperate conservative compromise 



