ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE, 367 



to employ has not been previously adopted in other departments 

 of .natural history.* By neglecting this precaution he is liable 

 to have the name altered, and his authority superseded by the 

 first subsequent author who may detect the oversight, and 

 for this result, however unfortunate, we fear there is no remedy, 

 though such cases would be less frequent if the detectors of 

 these errors would, as an act of courtesy, point them out to 

 the author himself, if living, and leave it to him to correct his 

 own inadvertencies. This occasional hardship appears to us to 

 be a less evil than to permit the practice of giving the same 

 generic name ad libitum to a multiplicity of genera. We sub- 

 mit, therefore, that 



§ 10. A name should be changed which has before been 

 proposed for some other genus in zoology or botany, or for 

 some other species in the same genus, when still retained for 

 such genus or species. 



\_A name whose meaning is glaringly false may be changed."] 



Our next proposition has no other claim for adoption than 

 that of being a concession to human infirmity. If such proper 

 names of places as Covent Garden, Lincoln's Inn Fields, New- 

 castle, Bridgewater, &c, no longer suggest the ideas of gardens, 

 fields, castles, or bridges, but refer the mind with the quickness 

 of thought to the particular localities which they respectively 

 designate, there seems no reason why the proper names used 

 iu natural history should not equally perform the office of 

 correct indication, even when their etymological meaning may 

 be wholly inapplicable to the object which they typify. But 

 w r e must remember that the language of science has but a 

 limited currency, and hence the words which compose it do not 

 circulate with the same freedom and rapidity as those which 

 belong to every-day life. The attention is consequently liable 

 in scientific studies to be diverted from the contemplation of the 

 thing signified to the etymological meaning of the sign, and 

 hence it is necessary to provide that the latter shall not be such 

 as to propagate actual error. Instances of this kind are indeed 

 very rare, and in some cases, such as that of Monodon, Gapri- 

 mulgus, Paradisea apoda and Monoculus, they have acquired 

 sufficient currency no longer to cause error, and are therefore 

 retained without change. But when we find a Batraehian reptile 

 named in violation of its true affinities Mastodonsaurus, a 

 Mexican species termed (through erroneous information of its 

 habitat) Picus cafer, or an olive-coloured one Muscicapa atra, 



* This laborious and difficult research will in future be greatly facilitated by the 

 very useful work of II. Agassiz, entitled " Nonienclator Zoologicus." 



