Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
381 
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., 
May 14, 1886. 
Sirs, — I wish to thank you for your very kind review of 
my f Ornithological Explorations in Kamtschatka and the 
Commander Islands/ At the same time I take the liberty 
to protest against a remark in the footnote ( antea , p. 202), 
referring to me as “ a stickler for correct names ” in con¬ 
nection with “ corrections ” of a philological nature. It is 
true that I am endeavouring to use names which are correct 
omit ho logically, and in that respect I may be “a stickler;” 
but my stand in regard to philological corrections of names 
already given, is clearly expressed in the following quotation 
from a paper written by me five years ago :— 
“ As to the rules of the nomenclature, it seems to me that 
the best are those which present the smallest number of 
exceptions, and which, once adopted, give the least occasion 
for disputes. I therefore propose to use the oldest available 
name in every case, where it can be proved, and to spell it 
exactly as it was spelled when published for the first time, 
notwithstanding incorrect derivation, barbarous offspring, 
error facti, &c. 
“ The significance of a name, by means of the sound and 
the appearance, is to give a conception of the named object 
as being different from all other objects. If it, at the same 
time, can be formed so that it indicates one or another chief 
property of the object, then it is the better. The main point 
is, however, that we, by hearing or seeing the name, will get 
an idea of the object as being different from any other. 
“That names which do not signify anything cause no 
inconvenience worth mentioning is evident from the num¬ 
berless specific names, indicating a quality common to all 
the species within the same genus, e. g. cinereus, fuscus, &c. 
It may be rather tedious that the names are incorrect; but 
the simply endless number of incorrect names with which we 
daily work without feeling especially troubled, and which 
probably no one intends to change or correct, shows better 
than anything else how unimportant the corrections and 
