42 REVIEWS. 



gists on the other hand, who have too generally allowed every- 

 one to do that which was right in his own eyes, are reaping 

 in consequence a plentiful harvest of confusion. The dif- 

 ficulty of a reform increases with its necessity. It is much 

 easier to state the evils than to relieve them ; and the well- 

 meant endeavors that have recently been made to this end are 

 some of them likely, if adopted, to make " confusion worse 

 confounded." Probably no living zoologist is so conversant 

 as Professor Agassiz with the actual state of the nomenclature 

 of the animal kingdom, and so well qualified to judge of the 

 practical working of proposed rules, which often involve con- 

 sequences that the propounders never dreamed of. Our 

 author's views are therefore entitled to great weight. We are 

 glad to perceive that they entirely concur with those quite 

 unanimously adopted in the other great department of natural 

 history for which the Linnaean canons were originally framed. 

 As these canons were the foundations of our nomenclature, 

 Professor Agassiz has very properly reproduced them, totidem 

 verbis^ from the " Philosophia Botanica," adding now and 

 then a short but pithy commentary. He then proceeds to 

 examine the rules proposed by the Committee of the British 

 Association, and shows that while some of them are mere iter- 

 ations of the Linngean canons, which should never have lost 

 their authority, others are contrary to them, or threaten greater 

 evils than they are intended to remedy. In most respects his 

 criticisms concur with those already made by Dr. Gould in a 

 former volume of this Journal (XIV. p. 1). We agree with 

 Professor Agassiz in thinking these English canons worthy of 

 adoption only when they agree with the letter or spirit of the 

 Linnsean rules, which indeed they generally do. Those which 

 conflict with them have not received, and probably will not 

 receive, the general assent even of British naturalists. Hence, 

 in our opinion, the American Geological Association has too 

 hastily reaffirmed them, while they have, indeed, improved 

 their form in several respects. It may be well to notice the 

 comments of Professor Agassiz upon the more objectionable 

 propositions. 



Their first rule, " that the name given by the founder of a 



