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1876.] | Bartramian Names in Ornithology. 99 
ous disagreement can long subsist when each feels and shows the 
respect due to the other, and when neither is contending for him- 
self, but for the truth and the general good. 
Before proceeding further, I will dispose of the only point on 
which Mr. Allen has misrepresented me ; let me hasten to add 
that I am sure he did so unintentionally. For he says that I 
advocate the adoption of certain names ‘“ whether they are ac- 
companied by descriptions or not.” But he did not really con- 
sider me guilty of such folly ; what he meant was, whether ac- 
companied by sufficient, formal descriptions, according to the 
usual interpretation of what constitutes a description. For rea- 
sons set forth at length in my paper, I hold that all of Bartram’s 
species were in effect described. How inadequate many of his 
descriptions were is seen in the large number of unidentifiable 
species. Of course I admit this; but the quality of Bartram’s 
descriptions is not a point at issue. 
Next, I wish to bring prominently forward a strong and good 
point Mr. Allen makes, namely, that species, to be tenable, must 
be identifiable by something in the work itself in which they are 
named ; it not being allowable to use knowledge subsequently 
gained to identify them upon a principle of exclusion, or any 
other process of cumulative circumstantial evidence. This is the 
gist of the sound count that my friend makes against me; for I 
certainly applied some of the knowledge which is the common 
Property of ornithologists of 1875 to the identification of species 
proposed in 1791 ; and if this kind of reasoning, and the sort of 
“ moral” certainty reached by its means, be ruled out as evidence, 
I should not wonder if, of the ten species I newly set up, no 
more than the six or seven Mr. Allen admits would be allowed to 
stand. I willingly concede the point, but, in paying my respects 
to Mr. Allen on this score, would simply .ask him, What has this 
to do with the proposition of mine, that if any of Bartram’s 
Species are tenable, then all his fully identified, described, and 
binomially named ones are too ? 
The rest of Mr. Allen’s critique may be summed under several 
heads, as follows : — 
(1.) The general statement that Bartram was a pretty poor sort 
of an ornithologist after all. As an expression of his opinion, 
Mr. Allen has a perfect right to say so, and I should be the last 
to restrict the freedom of his judgment ; but it is irrelevant to 
the’ case at issue. I think rather more highly of our author than 
Mr. Allen seems to, and in fact I wish we had no worse ornithol- 
