1 849.] NOMENCLATURE. 365 



At present, it would not do to give mere specific names ; but 

 I think Zoologists might open the road to the omission, by 

 referring to good systematic writers instead of to first de- 

 scribers. Botany, I fancy, has not suffered so much as 

 Zoology from mere naming; the characters, fortunately, are 

 more obscure. Have you ever thought on this point ? Why 

 should Naturalists append their own names to new species, 

 when Mineralogists and Chemists do not do so to new sub- 

 stances? When you write to Falconer pray remember me affec- 

 tionately to him. I grieve most sincerely to hear that he has 

 been ill. My dear Hooker, God bless you, and fare you well. 



Your sincere friend, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to Hugh Strickland* 



Down, Jan. 2Qth [1849]. 



.... What a labour you have undertaken ; I do honour 

 your devoted zeal in the good cause of Natural Science. Do 



* Hugh Edwin Strickland, M.A., career was suddenly cut short on 

 F.R.S., was born 2nd of March, September 14, 1853, when, while 

 1811, and educated at Rugby, geologizing in a railway cutting be- 

 and at Oriel College, Oxford. tween Retford and Gainsborough, 

 In 1835 an d 1836 he travelled he was run over by a train and 

 through Europe to the Levant with instantly killed. A memoir of him 

 W. J. Hamilton, the geologist, win- and a reprint of his principal cen- 

 tering in Asia Minor. In 1841 he tributions to journals was published 

 brought the subject of Natural by Sir William Jardine in 1858 ; 

 History Nomenclature before the but he was also the author of ' The 

 British Association, and prepared Dodo and its Kindred' (1848); 

 the Code of Rules for Zoological ' Bibhographia Zoologias ' (the latter 

 Nomenclature, now known by his in conjunction with Louis Agassiz, 

 name the principles of which are and issued by the Ray Society) ; 

 very generally adopted. In 1843 'Ornithological Synonyms' (one 

 he was one of the founders (if not volume only published, and that 

 the original projector) of the Ray posthumously). A catalogue of his 

 Society. In 1845 he married the ornithological collection, given by 

 second daughter of Sir William his widow to the University of 

 Jardine, Bart. In 1850 he was ap- Cambridge, was compiled by Mr. 

 pointed, in consequence of Buck- Salvin, and published in 1882. (I 

 land's illness, Deputy Reader in am indebted to Prof. Newton for 

 Geology at Oxford. His promising the above note.) 



