136 
PHALAROPUS FULICARIUS. 
Sy sterna Natures* will shew that the authority for 
tringa fulicaria 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 appellation can in nowise affect 
the specific name ; the present improved state of the 
science requires the former, justice demands that the 
latter should he preserved. In this work I have pre- 
served it ; and I flatter myself that this humble attempt 
to vindicate the rights of Linnaeus will be approved by 
all those who love the sciences of which he was so 
illustrious a promoter. 
* Of all the editions of the Sy sterna Naturae, 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 Sy sterna Naturae has involved the whole science in 
almost inextricable confusion; and Turton, whose English trans- 
lation 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. 
