

1. 
of a Type to Linnean Genera. 95 
‘The Ibis’ (1875, pp. 66, 67, footnote), and in one of the 
papers by which Mr. Sharpe has enriched the well-endowed 
literary history of the Accipitres (tom. cit. pp. 324-828). 
Still the authority which each of these gentlemen wields, and 
the learning which they both possess, is so great, that all must 
feel that as much as can be said on their side of the question 
has been said; and when I add that this has not shaken my 
belief, I cannot but entertain a hope that I shall not be driven 
from the position I found myself (not without considerable 
reluctance) compelled to take up. But it seems to’me that 
a fuller statement of the facts of the case than I had room 
originally to make, may not be without its use to those who 
perhaps may be halting between the two opinions; while 
courtesy itself requires of me some reply to my friendly 
critics. Besides this I have an error, which they have not 
detected, to acknowledge, and, if possible, to repair; while, 
furthermore, it appears to me that some advantage may fol- 
low from a consideration of the method which should be 
adopted in assigning a “type” to the genera of authors to whom 
the notion of a type species, as we nowadays understand it, 
was altogether strange. This last, indeed, may be said to 
underlie the whole question I propose to discuss; and, having 
an important general bearing, I proceed to take it first. 
When the existing notion of a type species was first pro- 
pounded, and when it became generally adopted, are matters 
upon which I need not now enter, even if I felt myself com- 
petent to treat of them. They may for the present be left 
until some one shall write the history of systematic biology. 
It will hardly be denied, I think, by any one having a mode- 
rate acquaintance with the works of Linnzeus, that no such 
notion was ever entertained by him, though one would sup- 
pose that it must have presented itself to his mind, from the 
fact that it was familiar to, and was almost constantly acted 
upon by his contemporary, Brisson. Yet we may search the 
writings of Linnzeus in vain not only for the word “ type,” 
used in the meaning of modern systematists, but, if I mistake 
not, even for any expression equivalent to it. It therefore 
follows that extreme caution must be used in the assignation 

