2S8 
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OP BIRDS. 
troduced of late years into our catalogues. We are 
ever desirous of bestowing honour where it is due • and 
we trust that no other motives than those we have here 
stated will be imputed to us on this occasion. 
(197.) A genus or species in one department of 
natural history should not be named after a naturalist 
emment only in another; and such names, where prac- 
ticable,^ should belong to those groups which have been 
more immediately benefited by the naturalist to whom 
the honour is given The name of an ornithologist, 
however highly esteemed and lionoured among zoolo- 
gists, may he utterly unknown to the botanical world • 
It IS, therefore, highly objectionable to record his name' 
in the annals of a science wherein he has done nothin<r • 
equally objectionable is it when this position is reversed! 
Each branch of natural history, in fact, should per- 
petuate the names only of those by whom it has been 
advanced or signally henefited. Such appellations, 
therefore, as Goodenovii, Bichenor.ii, Brownii, Baueri 
etc., all designating eminent botanists, should have no 
place in ornithological nomenclature ; more especially 
as the high merits of the greater part have already pro- 
cured for them the lasting honour of a generic distinction, 
and they are likely to put small account on seeing them- 
selves introduced where they are not known. ' Even 
the true value of a mere compliment is in its being well 
tmed, and happily appropriate to the individual; but 
the calling a bird after a botanist, or an insect after an 
ornithologist, destroys the association of ideas which 
shouhl be between the name and the object. Linmeus 
and his school were not only, in general, very cautious 
m thus commemorating individuals, but peculiarlv 
happy in their choice of appropriate occasions " Thus ” 
observes Linmeus, “ the genus as named after 
the two distinguished brothers, John and Caspar 
Baulnn, has a two-lobed or a twin leaf. Dorsten^, 
with Its obsolete flowers, devoid of all beauty,' alludes 
to the antiquated and uncouth book of Eorstinius Jder- 
nandia, an American plant, the most beautiful of all 
