vou. uI.] Letter Srom Alphonse de Candolle. . 253 
Hymenorus macer Casey. Common at Poway, San Diego County, 
under debris, beneath trees and about decaying vegetables. 
lsomira variabilis Horn. Moderately common at Poway during 
June and July on the blossoms of Adenostoma fasciculatum. 
Cistela Thevenetii Horn. Moderately rareat Poway. Frequents 
the blossoms of Adenostoma fasciculatum. Color piceous-black to 
black, femora red. 
LETTER FROM M. ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE TO M. 
: ERNEST MALINVAUD.* 
GENEVA, July 6, 1892. 
Dear Sir and Fellow Member: 
You wish to know my opinion regarding the propositions issued 
by a committee of very competent botanists in Berlin, on’ the sub- 
ject of nomenclature. I have signed the four articles which they 
propose, and I will tell you why. 
In 1867, when we revised the collection of laws of nomenclature, 
we made omissions and committed several errors, which the march 
of science has now made obvious. We then thought almost exclu- 
sively of the future, scarcely at all of the first epoch in binominal 
nomenclature. We particularly said that it should start from 
Linnzeus, without explaining from which of his works. But be- 
tween the first edition of the Systema Nature (1735) and the au- 
thor’s last dissertation, published in 1776, a period of forty-one 
_ years elapsed, and during this long time his principal works were 
spread abroad (Genera, Species, Mantissa, etc.). At the same 
time descriptions of genera and species were published which are 
or are not sound, according as the nomenclature is based on this or 
that work of the master. 
It is sufficient to cast a glance at the first folio edition of the Sys- 
tema, now very rare, to be convinced that it is intended to make 
known Linnzeus’ twenty-four classes and not at all to define genera. 
It was in 1737, in the first edition of the Genera, that the author 
named and characterized the genera which he admitted. In 1753, 
in the first edition of the Species, he enumerated species under the 
binominal form. Not long since I was disposed to determine gen- 
_ * Translated by Mary F. McRoberts, fi 
_ of France, Vol. 39, meeting of July 8, 1892. 
from the Bulletin of the Botanical Society 
~ 
