﻿LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



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sub-genera, resting upon no analysis or demonstration, 

 our custom is to preserve the generic name only, not 

 choosing to adopt sub-genera, which may possibly prove 

 to be mere examples of aberrant species. With these 

 preliminary remarks we may now proceed to notice the 

 laws promulgated by our predecessors for the construc- 

 tion of generic or sub-generic names — for specific 

 names — and the circumstances under which the latter 

 they may be altered. 



(187.) Every group or species for which a new 

 name is proposed, must be properly defined, otherwise it 

 cannot be adopted or noticed. — It is obvious, that if a 

 new word is compounded, and applied to an object, or 

 a group of objects, the meaning of the word, or, in 

 other words, the characters of that to which it is given, 

 must be fully explained, before it can be understood or 

 adopted (if correct) by others. It has been a serious 

 complaint among entomologists, that writers of cata- 

 logues introduce a multitude of new generic or specific 

 names, without concerning themselves with the trouble 

 of definitions, leaving their readers to make out their 

 meaning, as best they can, but assuming to themselves 

 the priority of nomenclature : such silly vanity is un- 

 worthy of any true naturalist, and has been discounte- 

 nanced so effectually by those of a higher order, whose 

 opinions have been looked up to*, that there is no 

 danger of the few experiments of this sort that has been 

 tried in ornithology, being often repeated. For our own 

 part we have, upon a former occasion, distinctly stated 

 that u all such names will be passed over as if they 

 never had existed." t 



(188.) The character of a group or species must be 

 so clear and definite, that it cannot be applied to any 

 other. — It has been well remarked, that a bad or im- 

 perfect description of an object is no description at all; 

 its proposed name, therefore, cannot be adopted. Never- 

 theless, if we were strictly to act upon this rule, three 



* Latrielle N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxiii. 12.9. 

 f Macleay, AnnulosaJav. 19. note. 



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