﻿LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



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trees in its foliage, but furnished with trifling blossoms., 

 bears the name of a botanist highly favoured by fortune, 

 and allowed an ample salary for investigating the New 

 World, but whose labours were trifling. Magnolia, 

 with its beautiful blossoms and fruit, serves to immor- 

 talise two of the most meritorious botanists. Linncea, 

 a depressed, abject, Lapland plant, long overlooked, 

 flowering at an early age, was named by Gronovius 

 after its prototype, Linnaeus." Many other poetic or 

 elegant analogies might be drawn, showing the discri- 

 minating judgment of our predecessors in this respect. 

 Thus, Smithia, growing in shady thickets, with its 

 beautiful pinnated leaves, closing together on being 

 rudely handled, commemorates the modest, yet learned 

 Sir James Smith, whose amiable feelings were most 

 expanded in the retreats of private life. The large 

 and beautiful crimson flowers of Brownea will recall 

 to mind the splendid talents of the first of living 

 botanists, to whose honour every body will attribute the 

 name.* Goodenovia will perpetuate the memory of a late 

 eminent botanist and divine much better than the little 

 bird injudiciously called after him : while Banksia, a 

 most extensive group of plants peculiar to Australia, re- 

 minds us of that munificent patron of science who first 

 investigated the shores of Botany Bay. In like manner, 

 as specific names of this sort are, in ornithology, what 

 generic are in botany, Vaillanti, Kuhli, and Vigorsi 

 may justly be applied to some of the new and splendid 

 parrots recently described ; for by those names we should 

 perpetuate the labours of the most eminent investi- 

 gators who have especially written upon the family 

 of Psittacidce. As the name of Barrabaud, although but 

 a zoological painter of these birds, cannot be refused 

 admittance into such an honourable list, we trust to see 

 that of hear also added on some future occasion. It 

 is obvious, however, that these two latter would be 

 quite misapplied if given to other birds : however, they 



* We believe this genus, in reality, was instituted to commemorate an 

 old author who wrote on the plants of Jamaica. 



