368 LIFE AT DOWN. ^ETAT. 33~45- [1849. 



Naturae/ &c. I fear, therefore, that (at least until our nomen- 

 clature is more definitely settled) it will be impossible to 

 indicate species with scientific accuracy, without adding the 

 name of their first author. You may, indeed, do it as you 

 propose, by saying in Lam. An. Invert., &c., but then this 

 would be incompatible with the law of priority, for where 

 Lamarck has violated that law, one cannot adopt his name. 

 It is, nevertheless, highly conducive to accurate indication to 

 append to the (oldest) specific name one good reference to a 

 standard work, especially to a figure, with an accompanying 

 synonym if necessary. This method may be cumbrous, but 

 cumbrousness is a far less evil than uncertainty. 



Jt, moreover, seems hardly possible to carry out the priority 

 principle without the historical aid afforded by appending the 

 author's name to the specific one. If I, a priority man, called 

 a species C. D., it implies that C. D. is the oldest name that 

 I know of; but in order that you and others may judge of 

 the propriety of that name, you must ascertain when, and by 

 whom, the name was first coined. Now, if to the specific 

 name C. D., I append the name A. B., of its first describer, I 

 at once furnish you with the clue to the dates when, and the 

 book in which, this description was given, and I thus assist 

 you in determining whether C. D. be really the oldest, and 

 therefore the correct, designation. 



I do, however, admit that the priority principle (excellent 

 as it is) has a tendency, when the author's name is added, to 

 encourage vanity and slovenly work. I think, however, that 

 much might be done to discourage those obscure and unsatis- 

 factory definitions of which you so justly complain, by writing 

 down the practice. Let the better disposed naturalists com- 

 bine to make a formal protest against all vague, loose, and 

 inadequate definitions of (supposed) new species. Let a 

 committee (say of the British Association) be appointed to 

 prepare a sort of Class List of the various modern works in 

 which new species are described, arranged in order of merit. 



