I do, however, admit that the priority principle (excellent as it is) has a tendency, when the author's name is added, to encourage vanity and slovenly work. I think, however, that much might be done to discourage those obscure and unsatisfactory definitions of which you so justly complain, by WRITING DOWN the practice. Let the better disposed naturalists combine to make a formal protest against all vague, loose, and inadequate definitions of (supposed) new species. Let a committee (say of the British Association) be appointed to prepare a sort of CLASS LIST of the various modern works in which new species are described, arranged in order of merit. The lowest class would contain the worst examples of the kind, and their authors would thus be exposed to the obloquy which they deserve, and be gibbeted in terrorem for the edification of those who may come after.
I have thus candidly stated my views (I hope intelligibly) of what seems best to be done in the present transitional and dangerous state of systematic zoology. Innumerable labourers, many of them crotchety and half-educated, are rushing into the field, and it depends, I think, on the present generation whether the science is to descend to posterity a chaotic mass, or possessed of some traces of law and organisation. If we could only get a congress of deputies from the chief scientific bodies of Europe and America, something might be done, but, as the case stands, I confess I do not clearly see my way, beyond humbly endeavouring to reform NUMBER ONE.
Yours ever, H.E. STRICKLAND.