observed nor spoken of by our predecessors: are we to 
leave these new objects without a name? or describe them 
by tedious circumlocution? or adopt an old denomination 
which must necessarily belong to something else? This 
would be a solecism in knowledge. A new name must 
be called in, and the reader must learn it (he will find them 
few and useful), or remain without the pale of the pro- 
gress of knowledge. We do not here, of course, include 
the abuse of this liberty: to this every good is liable. To 
strip the study of natural history of abstruseness, and 
withdraw it from the sphere of abstraction, in which it 
has been too often unduly involved, is quite another thing. 
In regard to the task we have to perform, to render our- 
selves intelligible to every class of readers, while we endea- 
your to familiarize them with the necessary new terms in 
use, will be a constant aim. 
New names in the history of nature are but the conven- 
tional abbreviations of long phrases and wide circumlocu- 
tions; their use is in some sort the same to the naturalist 
that his algebraic signs and equivalents are to the geo- 
metrician. If Botany had had its conventional signs to 
work with as far back as Geometry has had hers, we should 
not now find it the last on the list of sciences. 
VOL. IX. P 
