LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. [1849. 



lavis ; I have, therefore, given that name to the one which is 

 rather the commonest. Literally, not one species is properly 

 defined ; not one naturalist has ever taken the trouble to open 

 the shell of any species to describe it scientifically, and yet all 

 the genera have half-a-dozen synonyms. For argument's sake, 

 suppose I do my work thoroughly well, any one who happens 

 to have the original specimens named, I will say by Chenu, 

 who has figured and named hundreds of species, will be able 

 to upset all my names according to the law of priority (for he 

 may maintain his descriptions are sufficient), do you think it 

 advantageous to science that this should be done : I think 

 not, and that convenience and high merit (here put as mere 

 argument) had better come into some play. The subject is 

 heart-breaking. 



I hope you will occasionally turn in your mind my argu- 

 ment of the evil done by the " mihi " attached to specific 

 names ; I can most clearly see the excessive evil .it has caused ; 

 in mineralogy I have myself found there is no rage to merely 

 name ; a person does not take up the subject without he in- 

 tends to work it out, as he knows that his only claim to merit 

 rests on his work being ably done, and has no relation what- 

 ever to naming. I give up one point, and grant that reference 

 to first describer's name should be given in all systematic 

 works, but I think something would be gained if a reference 

 was given without the author's name being actually appended 

 as part of the binomial name, and I think, except in sys- 

 tematic works, a reference, such as I propose, would damp 

 vanity much. I think a very wrong spirit runs through all 

 Natural History, as if some merit was due to a man for merely 

 naming and defining a species ; I think scarcely any, or none, 

 is due ; if he works out minutely and anatomically any one 

 species, or systematically a whole group, credit is due, but I 

 must think the mere defining a species is nothing, and that 

 no injustice is done him if it be overlooked, though a great 

 inconvenience to Natural History is thus caused. I do not 

 think more credit is due to a man for defining a species, than 

 to a carpenter for making a box. But I am foolish and rabid 



