216 METHODS OF WOEK 



What you call the Maries martes " difficulty " is no 

 difficulty whatever to me. I follow the usage of a cen- 

 tury or more, and when I find it expedient to adopt a 

 specific form as generic I take the next oldest specific 

 name, and there is sure to be one at hand. This was the 

 invariable practice till a few years ago when these 

 foolish people started on " principles " which were not 

 only new, but such as no man of sense or education 

 would take up. It has been shown that the Scomber 

 scomber and one or two similar cases, sometimes cited 

 in defence of the new theory, were probably due to care- 

 lessness, or want of supervision. Certain it is that in 

 Linnaeus' own copy of the 12th Edition of the " Syst. 

 Nat." which you may see in the library of the Linn. 

 Soc. he has crossed out scomber as a specific name, and 

 had his intended 13th Edition ever appeared it would 

 doubtless have been corrected. 



It is a curious thing that the more ignorant and un- 

 educated a man is the more he tries to upset all estab- 

 lished scientific nomenclature ; but it has happened 

 . that a few educated men have (from vanity ?) done 

 some mischief in the same direction, and they are greedily 

 followed by the unlearned, who fancy themselves wiser 

 than all the rest of the world.* 



Certainly " comparative " names are objectionable, 

 except the time-honoured major and minor. One 

 objection is (and it applies even to these two words) 

 that when one is bestowed, another species is so apt 

 to turn up which renders it inapplicable. I think 

 nothing is more abominable than naming animals after 

 men or women, and of late the practice (which shows 

 that the nomenclator is ignorant or idle, perhaps both) 

 has been so followed that it is almost an insult for any 

 person to be so " commemorated." 



As to generic names, it has been reduced to an 

 absurdity. What do you think of Thonarsitorson as 

 the generic name of a dove, given by Bonaparte in his 



* Letter to G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, June 30, 1904. 



