PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 131 



■which, briefly, is the chronological list of the several 

 names under which species or genera may have been 

 known. This diversity of names has originated in several 

 ways, — from indolence, or ignorance, or excessive refine- 

 ment. The views of systematists will differ in the collo- 

 cation of creatures ; hence, sometimes what had been 

 previously divided will be recombined, or divisions into 

 further groups be made of what had been before united. 

 Both processes will necessarily produce synonyms ; the 

 recombination of what had been separated reduces the 

 names of such groups to the rank of synonyms of the 

 old one from which they have been disjoined. In the 

 latter case the old name will be retained to the typical 

 species merely, and be also made a partial synonym of 

 the names of the new generic groups : or, indeed, 

 it may happen that the same creature has been described 

 generically, unknowingly, by two different persons, about 

 the same time. By another recognized rule in nomen- 

 clature, the 'law of priority,' the name given by the 

 first describer is accepted, and the other consequently 

 falls to the condition of a synonym. 



With respect to specific synonymy, many causes con- 

 duce to it ; namely, an imperfect description which can- 

 not be clearly recognized, reducing it to that category, 

 with a mark of interrogation appended ; subsequent de- 

 scription when want of tact has not discerned the iden- 

 tity of the old one; indolence in looking about for 

 works upon the same subject; inability to obtain access 

 to books wherein they may be described, owing either to 

 their costliness or to their obscurity, or by lying buried 

 in some collapsed journal, or the poverty of our public 

 libraries, etc. etc. But however thus lost sight of, or 

 wilfuUy ignored, the name still retains vital elasticity, 



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