LEWIS D. VON SCHWEINITZ. 
25 
have, with becoming spirit, discarded the too frequent 
practice of writers in changing the names of plants, and 
adopting new synonyms, merely, as would often appear, 
to compel future naturalists to cite their own names in 
connexion with the trivial specific appellations which 
they choose to affix to well known objects. This course 
they avoided under the conviction that natural history 
had received, and was daily receiving, great detriment 
from the accumulation and confusion of these synonyms. 
They have, moreover, assiduously avoided superfluous 
repetitions of the names of classes, orders, genera, and 
species, and given a true synopsis of the department 
which they professed to treat. They have followed the 
steps of Persoon, sensible that though his method may 
be in some points defective, it is better not to depart 
from so able a guide ; for, they remark, u it is well 
known how much easier it is to find fault with our neigh¬ 
bour’s house than to build a better and more commodious 
one ourselves.” u A solid basis to this department of bo¬ 
tanical science,” they add, 66 must be laid, not on a sandy 
foundation, on the varying freaks and fancies of the mind, 
hut on a perpetual daily and nightly employment of mi¬ 
croscopic observation, a diligent and oft repeated ex¬ 
amination of the whole history of the fungous tribes, a 
careful perusal of authors, a comparison of their re¬ 
spective synonyms, and above all, by the observation of 
living nature herself, as she unfolds her rich abundance 
in the recesses of forests, lawns and marshes; an obser¬ 
vation which must be continued from day to day, and 
