GREY PHALAROPE. 
199 
be useless, because they are propositions which all naturalists 
deem self-evident. Then how comes it, whilst we are so tena- 
cious 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 offulicaria. 
That I shall be supported in this restoration I have little doubt, 
when it shall have been made manifest that it was Linnaeus 
himself who first named this species. A reference to the tenth 
edition of the Systcma Naturce^ will show that the authority for 
Tringa falicaria is Edwards’s red coot-footed tringa, pi. 142, 
and that alone, for it does not appear that Linnaeus had seen 
the bird. The circumstance of the change of the generic ap- 
pellation can in nowise affect the specific name ; the present 
improved state of the science requires the former, justice de- 
mands that the latter should be preserved. In this work I 
have preserved it ; and I flatter myself that this humble attempt 
to vindicate the rights of Linnaeus will be approved by aU those 
who love the sciences of which he was so illustrious a pro- 
moter. 
* Of all tbe editions of the SysUma NaturcB, the tenth and the twelfth are 
the most valuable ; 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, Linnaeus is principally known through two editors : Gmelin, 
whose thirteenth edition of the Systema Natures 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. 
