ZOOLOGICAL JJ^OMENCLATHEE. 329 



Nowhere can this question be more appropriately asked than 

 before our Society, which not only in theory but in practice 

 deals impartially with both these great branches of scieuce. 

 "We turn from one to the other in the course of a single evening 

 with facile versatility. Sometimes the two find common ground 

 of report and argument. Not seldom one sheds interesting side- 

 lights upon the other. Often by question and answer students 

 of one draw forth from students of the other information and 

 suggestions of value to both. 



Professor Blanchard makes a frank and honourable appeal in 

 behalf of the Commission over which he presides. " It is the 

 right," he declares, "almost we might say the duty, of every 

 zoologist to lay before us the difficulties which occur to him. 

 The Commission is not a tribunal issuing absolute decrees, but a 

 committee of philanthropic persons who have made a special 

 study of the principles of nomenclature and have practical 

 experience of the difficulties involved in their application. It 

 examines impartially questions brought before it, seeking the 

 most judicious solution of each problem in conformity with the 

 standing rules, and submitting its answers with the reasons 

 on which they are founded in a report to the International 

 Congress, which then frames its decision in the light of full 

 information." In spirit and expression nothing could be more to 

 the purpose, and there is ground for thinking that the members 

 of the Commission have made the most zealous endeavours to 

 accomplish the impossible task of satisfying everyone. But 

 there is a pregnant phrase in a recent biography of a statesman 

 by a statesman, that " Agreement in principle is of little avail, 

 without driving-force enough for practice " *. To secure this 

 driving-force for practice in regard to the present subject seems 

 to be far from a simple task. These comet-like zoological con- 

 gresses, that make their dazzling brief appearance once in three 

 years at different points of the scientific firmament, produce a 

 very faint impression on naturalists who happen to be without 

 inclination, means, health, or leisure for travelling, and on those 

 who have no spare guineas to spend on miscellaneous Trans- 

 actions. The several papers from Berlin and Paris, from 

 Xonigsberg and "Washington, brought under your notice as 

 groundwork for this evening's discussion, may have been widely 



* Morley's ' Life of Gladstone,' vol. ii. p. 398. 



