THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 59 



such instances even now occur not unfrequently. 

 Thus, 1st, the original name does not need a change ; 

 and 2nd, the proposed substitute is inadmissible. 

 Audubon continues : — " But names already given 

 and received, whether apt or inapt, I am told, must 

 not be meddled with. To this law I humbly submit, 

 and so proceed, contenting myself with feeling assu- 

 red that many names given to birds might, with 

 much benefit to the student of nature, become the 

 subjects of reform." — Oni. Biogr. vol. I, p. 394. 

 Thus it seems that the student is to lose all the 

 benefit of advantageous changes, simply because the 

 professor has been told they must not take place ! 

 Thus we see the misdirected organs of Venera- 

 tion and Imitation triumphing over Causality, 

 and I may almost say Conscientiousness, for certain- 

 ly it is unjust to deprive the student, without any 

 adequate reason, of those aids, which the professor 

 has it in his power to bestow. Happily, however, 

 for his own reputation and the cause of science, 

 Audubon has not generally suffered himself to be 

 cramped and blindfolded by the authority of those 

 who either through ignorance or prejudice were not 

 fitted for advisers. I shall give a striking instance 

 of this; it is well known that the Aquila leucoce- 

 phala is usually called the " Bald Eagle ;" Wilson 

 says in relation to the specific name : — " The epi- 

 thet bald, applied to this species, whose head is 

 diickly covered with feathers, is equally improper 

 and absurd with Goatsucker, &c. &c, bestowed on 

 c'i — ,. anc | seems ^ h a v e been occasioned by the 



