240 
GRAY PHALAROPE. 
out the works of Linnaeus are become current coin, nor can they be 
altered without great inconvenience.”* 
I’hat there is a property in names as well as in things, will 
not be disputed ; and there are few naturalists who would not feel 
as sensibly a fraud committed on their nomenclature as on their 
purse. The ardour with which the student pursues his researches, 
and the solicitude which he manifests in promulgating his disco- 
veries under appropriate appellations, are proofs that at least part 
of his gratification is derived from the supposed distinction which 
a name will confer upon him ; deprive him of this distinction, and 
you inflict a wound upon his self-love which will not readily be 
healed. 
To enter into a train of reasoning to prove that he who first 
describes and names a subject of natural history, agreeable to the 
laws of systematic classification, is for ever entitled to his name, 
and that it cannot be superseded without injustice, would be use- 
less, because they are propositions which all naturalists deem self- 
evident. Then how comes it, whilst we are so tenacious of our 
own rights, we so often disregard those of others ? 
I would now come to the point. It will be perceived that I 
have ventured to restore the long neglected name of Fulicaria. 
That I shall be supported in this restoration I have little doubt 
when it shall have been made manifest that it was Linn^us him- 
self who first named this species. A reference to the tenth edition 
of the Systema Naturaef will show that the authority for Tringa 
* An Introduction to Physiological and Systematical Botany, chap. 22. 
f Of all the editions of the Systema Naturae, the tenth and the twelfth are the most valua- 
ble ; the former being the first which contains the synonyma, and the latter being that which 
received the finishing hand of its author. In the United States Linnseus is principally known 
through two editors : — Gmelin, whose thirteenth edition of the Systema Naturas has involved 
the whole science in almost inextricable confusion, and Turton, whose English translation of 
Gmelin is a disgrace to science and letters. All writers on Zoology and Botany should possess 
Linnaeus’s tenth and twelfth editions, they will be found to be of indispensable use in tracing 
synonymes, and fixing nomenclature. 
