GRAY PHALAROPE. 135 



learned president of the Linnsean Society, " is, from the 

 multitude of objects with which it is conversant, 

 necessarily so encumbered with names, that students 

 require every possible assistance to facilitate the attain- 

 ment of those names, and have a just right to complain 

 of every needless impediment. Nor is it allowable to 

 alter such names, even for the better. In our science, 

 the names established throughout the works of Linnzeus 

 are become current coin, nor can they be altered without 

 great inconvenience."* 



That there is a property in names, as well as in 

 things, will not be disputed ; and there are few naturalists 

 who would not feel as sensibly a fraud committed on 

 their nomenclature as on their purse. The ardour with 

 which the student pursues his researches, and the 

 solicitude which he manifests in promulgating his dis- 

 coveries under appropriate appellations, are proofs that 

 at least part of his gratification is derived from the 

 supposed distinction which a name wiil confer upon 

 him ; deprive him of this distinction, and you inflict a 

 wound upon his self-love which will not readily be 

 healed. 



To enter into a train of reasoning to prove that he 

 who first describes and names a subject of natural 

 history, agreeable to the laws of systematic classification, 

 is for ever entitled to his name, and that it cannot be 

 superseded without injustice, would be useless, because 

 they are propositions which all naturalists deem self- 

 evident. Then how comes it, whilst we are so tenacious 

 of our own rights we so often disregard those of others ? 



I would now come to the point. It will be perceived 

 that I have ventured to restore the long neglected name 

 offulicaria. That I shall be supported in this restora- 

 tion I have little doubt, when it shall have been made 

 manifest that it was Linnaeus himself who first named 

 this species. A reference to the tenth edition of the 



An Introduction to Physiological and Systematical Botany, 

 chap. 12. 



