^OO Allen, A Defense of Cano7i XL of the A. O. U. Code. Pq^J' 



or indigenous names should be avoided in future, those already 

 in existence are not to be either rejected or emended, but treated 

 as simply " arbitrary combinations of letters." 



On the other hand, extremists of the school Mr. Elliot repre- 

 sents will tolerate only words of classical origin, or at least of 

 Latin form, and of correct philological construction. One might 

 infer from Mr. Elliot's remarks that this correct philological form 

 was a very simple matter to attain ; that there was but one allow- 

 able rule for transliteration from other languages into Latin ; that 

 all scholars who " know how to spell " are agreed on the proper 

 methods of compounding names under all circumstances ; that 

 philological authorities were never at loggerheads as to the 

 correct construction of names of doubtful etymology (of which 

 there are many); and that emended and re-emended emendations 

 were never heard of. Simple indeed, were all this true, would 

 be this troublesome matter of " knowing how to spell " in a 

 manner to please everybody. 



Between the rejection of names on account of their non-classi- 

 cal origin, the emendation of classical terms improperly constructed, 

 even to their complete transformation to practically ncAv words, 

 and the thousand and one slighter changes that do not to any 

 material extent alter the original word, there is no point at which 

 a line can be drawn — the whole field is thrown open to individ- 

 ual predilection, with no arbiter to decide between conflicting 

 authorities, and no prospect of agreement in tastes or preferences, 

 where more constructions than one chance to be allowable. Mr. 

 Elliot may prefer one ' spelling,' Dr. Coues another. The result 

 would be endless emendation and constant instability, each ' good 

 speller ' following his own preferences as to whether or not a 

 name is too bad to be tolerated, or whether it may not be accepted 

 after the proper amount of " tidying up." In many cases it is 

 purely a matter of choice, as custom goes, whether a certain word 

 from the Greek shall be spelled with a ^ or a A;, an i or a y, an / 

 or ay, etc ; while the etymology of many terms of questionable 

 meaning and construction is a matter of pure guesswork. 



The extent of the breach advocated by Mr. Elliot is probably 

 far greater than he supposes. Mr. Waterhouse's ' Index Generum 

 Avium,' published in 1889, gives a list of about 7000 names 



