302 Allen, A Defense of Canon XL of the A. O. U. Code. [^"^^ 



name rejected, and in other cases the earliest synonym that 

 chanced to meet the author's approval was taken. 



It was to avoid this uncertainty and instability that Canon XL 

 was devised, which in reality is only the enforcement of the law 

 of priority, literally as well as in spirit, to its finality, applying it 

 to the form of the name as well as to the name itself. There 

 can be no safe line of limitation in the case of emendation, where 

 there are so many who pose as good spellers and yet so often 

 spell the same name differently. In the only exception made — 

 that of " obvious or known typographical errors " — the critics 

 of Canon XL profess to see a great absurdity, although its mean- 

 ing is sufficiently defined. By ' obvious' is of course meant the 

 evident transposition of letters, or their inversion, overlooked 

 in proof-reading ; by ' known ' cases where the error, clerical or 

 typographical, has been corrected by the author himself, either 

 later in the same publication, as in the index or by means of an 

 errata slip, or elsewhere. The exception thus does not open 

 " a very wide door for the exercise of individual opinion," nor 

 are the known cases of such errors so rare as Mr. Elliot seems to 

 suppose. 



Mr. Elliot asks regarding Canon XL : " Has it accomplished 

 the result contemplated or desired? Is nomenclature by its as- 

 sertions a greater fixity to-day than when this rule was promul- 

 gated? Do those who know better accept bad spelling and 

 employ ungrammatical phrases, because it advises them so to 

 do? .... Has it made any converts among educated men?" etc. 

 In answer it may be said that it has not accomplished all that 

 was desired, but far more in, the line of its realization than its 

 most sanguine advocates dared hope. It has practically thus far 

 rendered fixed and permanent the nomenclature of North Amer- 

 ican ornithology, in North America at least, in so far as the 

 emendation or rejection of names upon purely philological 

 grounds is concerned. It has among its supporters and advocates 

 so nearly all of the leading authorities in vertebrate zoology in 

 this country (they must include stmie " educated men ") that the 

 few who reject this rule, like Mr. Elliot and Dr. Coues, are con- 

 spicuous by reason of their exceptional position. Not only this, 

 but converts have been made in this country in other departments 



