^°89^^] Allen, A Defense of Canon XL of tlu: A. O. U. Code. H)^) 



namely, the emendation of thousands of names, some of them 

 so radically that they retain little resemblance to their original 

 forms, or the retention of a few gross and shocking verbal mal- 

 formations against which their literary instincts must ever revolt. 



In the formation of the A. O. U. Code stability in nomenclature 

 was the primary end sought, which is the avowed purpose of all 

 modern codes of nomenclature ; and the authors of this code find 

 themselves in most excellant company in the stand taken on the 

 subject of emendation of names. They include a long list of 

 authors who are eminent as scholars as well as naturalists, and 

 " who know how to spell " in quite as many languages as Mr. 

 Elliot and his few sympathizers in the matter of this " extraordi- 

 nary " Canon XL. To charge the A. O. U. Committee with 

 placing a premium on illiteracy through the adoption of Canon 

 XL, as Mr. Elliot and Dr. Coues have done, is almost too absurd 

 for serious consideration, as the article itself and the discussion 

 and remarks thereunder abundantly show, to say nothing of the 

 eight pages or more of the Code (pp. 58-66) devoted to ' Rec- 

 ommendations for Zoological Nomenclature in the Future,' 

 treating especially of the selection and construction of names. 

 Under Canon XL it is said : " The permanence of a name is of 

 far more importance than its signification or structure, as is freely 

 admitted by the best authorities in both Botany and Zoology. 

 Your Committee therefore restrict the emendation of names to 

 the correction of obvious or known typographical errors .... They 

 would therefore reject emendations of a purely philological char- 

 acter, and especially all such as involve a change of the initial 

 letter of the name, as in cases where the Greek aspirate has been 

 omitted by the original constructor. It therefore follows that 

 hybrid names [anagrams, ' nonsense names,' and barbarous or 

 ' exotic ' names] cannot be displaced ; although it is to be hoped 

 that they will be strenuously guarded against in future ; and that. 

 in general, word-coiners will pay the closest attention to philolog- 

 ical proprieties." 



Nearly all modern codes of nomenclature agree that " A name 

 is only a name and need have no necessary significance.'' In 

 other words, while anagrams, hybrid names, nonsense names 

 (many such have been purposely constructed), and barbarous 



