2o6 Elliot, Canon XL, A. O. U. Code. I 



Auk 

 Oct. 



ists and classicists may commit, who in the timid minds of the 

 nifijority of this Committee, as originally composed, are rightly 

 enough ever ready to overthrow nonsense words, and bring to the 

 fold in their proper shapes, ungrammatical terms, rather strained 

 and manufactured for the occasion ? Is there such a preponder- 

 ance of ill-spelled words, and ill-formed compounds in ornithologi- 

 cal nomenclature as would overthrow it if corrected ? Is it such a 

 dreadful misfortune to be put right when one has gone astray ? 

 And would chaos and confusion arise if occasionally a ' purist ' 

 or a ' classicist ' should have the temerity to point out to an erring 

 brother the faults that he in his happy unconsciousness of evil had 

 committed ? Did the authors of this article stop to consider what 

 effect it would have upon those same purists and classicists ? Did 

 they for a moment suppose that these malevolent creatures, 

 imbued, as the gentlemen of this Committee rightly supposed, 

 with a settled antagonism to wrongdoing wherever it might exist, 

 would meekly surrender their opinions and renounce their con- 

 viction that right is right and error is error wherever found, and 

 become advocates of the holiness of blunders at the command or 

 teachings of this article ? And if they did not do this, where is 

 the stability of nomenclature so much desired ? For the writer is 

 happy to think there are more ' purists and classicists,' that is to 

 say, educated men, to-day devoted to scientific ornithology, than 

 there are of that class, who, in good faith but in all ignorance, 

 commit the blunders that so sorely need correcting. 



For only one cause may an error be made right under the 

 Canon introducing this rule, viz. : — when " a typographical error 

 is evident." Who is to determine this .-^ Must all such apparent 

 faults be submitted to this committee for their decision as to 

 whether the error is a typographical one or an author's misspell- 

 ing ? And suppose one has the audacity to form his own opinion 

 from as good evidence as that at the disposal of the Committee, 

 who is likely to be right if they disagree, and what is to be done 

 with the obdurate (of course not with the Committee, Oh, no !) 

 if he persists in his wilful way ? It is amazing in these days of 

 public schools and general knowledge that a committee of a 

 scientific society should solemnly announce as it does in this 

 Canon that " correctness of structure or philological propriety be 



