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that of giving at once the authority for the specific name and of 
indicating that the author of the species was or was not the 
authority for a more or less arbitrary collocation of generic and 
specific names. But a reference to Linnd’s work will show 
indeed that he does not closely collocate the generic and specific 
names. He places the generic names as a caption and following 
it are the definitions of the species to each of which is prefixed 
the name of the species only. Each specific name then has a 
separate existence independent of the generic name. 
Woodward has dealt with the subject of the employment of 
defective generic names on insufficient grounds in his Manual 
(pages 59 to 61) and Fischer has also some remarks on the same 
subject very well worthy of study in the introduction to the 1857 
volume of the Journal de Conchyliologie. In the volume for 
1866 of the same publication (p. 381) Crosse has also some 
remarks on the point, and I agree with him in all except as to 
the “ honouring” of individuals. The object of scientific no- 
menclature is the advancement of science and the convenience of 
the student of nature and not the honouring of any individuals. 
But nomenclature would be in an ever-shifting state and worse 
confused even than it is if the name of the author of a specific 
epithet can be changed by everyone who has a fancy to place 
the species in a new genus of his own or any one else s invention. 
On the subject of inventing new names for well-known 
groups already named (such for example as Pelecypoda for 
Conchifera) see Carter on Sponges, Annals and Magazine of 
Natural History, 4 ser. vol. xvi, p. 4. It would be hard .to 
devise designations or definitions entirely without fault, and 
therefore wffiere one in use is fairly satisfactoi} it is a useless 
innovation or rather an injury to science to introduce a ne v 
name. The whole method and practice of science is liable to e 
brought into disrepute by this and other unnecessary and 
objectionable practices which are unfortunately only too much 
in vogue. 
