1H BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE OF BIRDS, VoL. Vv. 157 
earry a favourable verdict. But the fact is that, in such 
cases, references to particular instances are inadmissible. 
The question must be looked at as a whole if we are to arrive 
at any sound conclusion. 
Now, taking the question as a whole, it is obvious that 
the most important point, from a purely scientific point of 
view, where nomenclature is concerned, is to ensure uniformity. 
Uniformity can only be secured in such a case by general 
adherence to fixed rules—by a code in fact. But a code, 
however good, is useless if every individual, nominally subject 
to its sway, is to be allowed to disregard it in such particulars 
as he pleases. If Mr. Seebohm would disregard the code in 
certain particulars, others would wish to do so in others, e.g., 
I should wish to adopt all good binominal names, whether 
prior to 1766 or not. If one may violate, all may violate ; 
if one rule may be broken, all may be broken; the code 
becomes obsolete, each naturalist acts in accordance with his 
personal predilections, and hopeless confusion replaces orderly 
uniformity. It is childish for any one ornithologist to dream 
that he may make amendments in the law, and that others 
will adopt these and read them, as the lawyers say, as 
part of the code. Let him be ever so wise, his emendations 
lack authority. I have met men who conceived that they 
could profitably rewrite and amend sundry chapters in the 
Bible. One very pious and learned man who has done so 
is still living; but could any individual learning, eloquence 
er virtue give authority to such “ revised versions?” So it 
is with the code; the emendations that one man approves 
carry no weight, no authority with others, and if they follow 
him at all, it will only be in his bad example of transgressing 
the code, whose rules they will violate, probably in a precisely 
contrary direction. 
There is no half-way house. You must either have a code 
rigidly obeyed and with it uniformity, or each left to his 
own devices and chaos. 
I am no blind admirer of the British Association Code, which 
modern science has sadly outgrown. I have persistently urged 
a conference of the most distinguished naturalists to revise 
and repromulgate it; but until this is done, and so long as 
that old code remains unrepealed, I cannot but esteem every 
naturalist who knowingly violates its provisions as one who 
wilfully obstructs uniformity, and thus, pro tanto, impedes 
progress. 
But though it seems to me impossible to approve Mr.Seebohm’s 
principles, we can scarcely do otherwise than appreciate and 
extol what may in contradistinction be called his practice. 
The work before me contains the most abundant evidence 
