﻿ALTERATIONS IN NOMENCLATURE. 



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struction of our language is not well adapted for this 

 purpose. To attempt expunging a well known vulgar 

 name, because it does not happen to express a scientific 

 group, appears equally repugnant to common sense and 

 sound judgment. 



I (205.) The observations of a late eminent naturalist 

 on these proposed changes seem to us to be marked 

 with so much sound sense, that we think they deserve 

 the attention of us all. " It is generally agreed among 

 mankind that names of countries, places, or things, sanc- 

 tioned by general use, should be sacred ; and the study 

 of natural history is, from the multitude of objects with 

 which it is conversant, necessarily so encumbered with 

 names, that students require every possible assistance, 

 to facilitate the attainment of those names, and they have 

 a just right to complain of every needless impediment. 

 The few great leaders, indeed, in natural knowledge must 

 and will be allowed to ward off and to correct, from time 

 to time, all that may tend to deform and enfeeble the pre- 

 vailing system. They must choose between names of the 

 same date, and even between good and bad ones of any 

 date. A botanist (or zoologist) who, by the strength of 

 his own superior knowledge and authority, reforms and 

 elucidates a whole tribe, ought to be unshackled in every 

 point in which he can be of service. His wisdom will 

 be evinced by extreme caution and reserve in using his 

 liberty with respect to new names ; and, after all, he will 

 be amenable to the general tribunal of botanists, and the 

 judgment of those who come after him. Few, indeed, 

 are illustrious enough to claim such privileges as these. 

 Those who alter names, often for the worse, according 

 to arbitary rules of their own, or in order to aim at 

 consequence which they cannot otherwise attain, are 

 but treated with silent neglect. The system should not 

 be encumbered with such names, even as synonyms."^ 



(206.) The definition or character of a genus or 

 subgenera should be strictly confined to such as are 

 altogether peculiar. It is the prevalent error of ornitho- 



* Smith's Introduction to Botany, second edition, p. 383. 

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