INTRODUCTION. 



" The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin " (vol. i. pp. 

 365-372) will show :— 



(a) " Why should naturalists append their own names 

 to new species, when mineralogists and chemists do not 

 do so to new substances ? " 



(;8) " I have come to a fixed opinion that the plan of 

 the first describer's name being appended for perpetuity 

 to a species has been the greatest curse to natural 

 history." 



(y) "I mean to adopt my notion, as never putting ' mihi ' 

 or ' Darwin ' after my own species." 



Then again, as this is not a systematic work on the 

 subject of which it treats, no harm is done by "dropping" 

 the describers' names generally attached to the organisms 

 alluded to. It will be our interest to learn more about 

 the things themselves than to ascertain the names — useful 

 or not — which the nomenclators have affixed to them. 



" J'ai toujours cru qui on pourrait etre un tres grande 

 botaniste sans connaitre un seul plante par son nom," 

 wrote the celebrated Rousseau in his " Dictionnaire de 

 Botanique." And if one can be a " very great botanist 

 without knowing the name of a single plant," so might 

 one be an entomologist, or a zoologist, if not great, at 

 least intelligent, without troubling oneself about any 

 system of " naming " used by experts. 



To conclude the chapter in the words of Mr. W. Gr. 

 Smith, F.L.S. : " All agriculturists should, if possible, 

 arouse themselves and learn something of the nature and 

 surroundings of plant disease. Till this knowledge is 

 acquired, and till agriculturists become alive to the 

 possibility of saving their crops from disease, little pro- 

 gress can be hoped for. We do not say that it is neces- 

 sary for every farmer to be a complete master of the 



