Address of the President at the Annual Meeting. 45 
and that the first impulse of many observers, when they meet 
with a type which is new to them, is to give it a name and a 
place in systematic arrangements. Hence Botany and Zoology 
become loaded with a multitude of names, designative of what 
even a small amount of care and patience will suffice to show 
are identical species ; and almost every widely -diffused plant 
or animal bears a mass of synonyms, which are extremely 
perplexing to the inexperienced naturalist, and very trouble- 
some even to him who knows how to estimate them aright. 
Thus, as Dr. J. D. Hooker remarks, the Pteris aquilina, one of 
the most widely-diffused of all Ferns, has received a different 
name in almost every country in the world; and among the 
plants of New Holland, which were at one time supposed to 
be altogether dissimilar to those of Europe, and which were 
described and named as new species, no fewer than 150 have 
been ascertained by Mr. Robert Brown to be identical with 
European plants. AH such synonomy, which has been rightly 
characterized as " the opprobrium of science," owes its exist- 
ence, as has been recently well remarked by the Rev. W. 
Smith (' Microscopical Journal,' vol. iii., p. 130) " to imperfect 
knowledge, imperfect observation, or imperfect judgment." 
It is not, however, to the synonymy resulting from careless 
ignorance of the identity of the supposed new forms with such 
as have been previously described, that I wish to direct your 
attention at the present time ; but to that resulting from a too 
great readiness to consider every departure from a certain type 
to which a particular designation has been attached, as enti- 
tled to rank as a specijic distinction. I believe that this dis- 
position has often been unduly indulged, under the idea that 
the making of new species was an acceptable contribution to 
Natural History, and gave to the maker the prestige of an 
original discoverer ; in other instances it has been favoured 
by the preconceived notion, that the plants or animals of 
newly-discovered, isolated, or little-visited localities must 
necessarily be new ; but even putting aside all influences of 
any such kind, I think it unquestionable that a vast multipli- 
cation of species has taken place, from a misapprehension of 
the value of distinctive characters, depending upon an entire 
ignorance of, or a very imperfect acquaintance with, the 
capacity of particular species for variation. It needs to be 
constantly borne in mind, that no general rules can be laid 
down with respect to the value of characters, that shall be of 
universal applicability. It frequently happens that in two 
groups, closely allied to one another, characters of the very 
same kind shall be sufficiently constant in one of them to be 
quite reliable as specific distinctions, whilst in the other they 
