COMMENTAET. 51 



thouglit proper to accept them, mere names ought to be 

 accepted as well. It must be remarked, however, that these 

 cases differ. The fact of the absence of any kind of character 

 added to a name is a well-defined and positive fact, whereas 

 the insufficiency of a description is something vague, and 

 that can be called into question ; besides, does it not some- 

 times occur that an apparently insignificant word is pre- 

 cisely that which allows you to hit upon a species ? 



47. (1.) It would be very useful to publish in journals and 

 in bibliographical works the exact date of several books and 

 plates, respecting which we are misled by the title-pages, or 

 left in doubt on account of there being no date given. 

 This is particularly the case with works published ia num- 

 bers. In well-kept herbaria the labels of the collections 

 that have been distributed bear the date of their reception, 

 which generally indicates that of their distribution. 



47. (3.) Publishing a name that cannot be adopted is use- 

 lessly throwing a synonym into circulation ; at least, in in- 

 dexes and dictionaries. SteudePs ' Nomenclator ' would be 

 as bulky again if all names existing in gardens, in herbaria or 

 in travellers' notes, even those that are known to be of no 

 value, were added to it. Names of this kind, when pub- 

 lished, are stillborn. Why increase their number, unless in 

 exceptional cases, when, for instance, an author requires 

 that they should be made known ? 



48. For a long time it was the universal custom among 

 botanists to quote for a combination of two names, generic 

 and specific, the author who had first appUed it to a 

 species. Som.e zoologists have followed another method, 

 recommended in 1842 by a committee consisting of Messrs. 

 Strickland, Owen, etc., at the British Association (Report, 

 § D.), but strongly combated from the beginning by M. 

 Agassiz (' Nomenclator,' p. xxvi) . Various botanists, MM. 

 Fries, Fr. Schultz, Kirschleger, etc., having introduced the 

 same method into botany, .have likewise met with a brisk op- 

 position, and the Publishiug Committee of the Botanical So- 

 ciety of France even issued on the question an explanatory 

 note, which produced some sensation. (Bull. 1860, p. 438.) 



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