PRINCIPLES, CANONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 21 



In the original Stricklandian Code the 'Rules' were restricted in their 

 application to Zoology, and this restricted scope of the ' Rules ' was explicitly 

 reaffirmed in the ' Recommendations ' prefixed to the Revised Code by the 

 Bath Committee of the British Association in 1865, as follows : "I. That 

 Botany should not be introduced in the Stricklandian Code and Recom- 

 mendations." 



The A. O. U. Committee reiterates this decision, and constructs its 

 canons without reference to Botany, conformably with the usage of British 

 zoologists, though the rules adopted both by the Socie'te Zoologique de 

 France, in iSSi, and the Congres Geologique International, in 1882, are in- 

 tended to apply alike to Zoology and Botany. Ball's essay also discusses 

 both together. 



Since botanists do not reject names because previously used in Zoology 

 and indeed pay little regard to the duplication of names in the two king- 

 doms, 1 there is little reason for the rejection by zoologists of names used in 

 Zoology on account of their prior use in Botany. While there has been 

 heretofore a lack of uniformity in the action of zoologists in this matter, and 

 an increasing tendency to ignore the B. A. rule requiring the rejection of 

 names in Zoology preoccupied in Botany, and as to make the rejection or 

 adoption uniform would in either case require not far from an equal number 

 of changes (in neither case many), the adoption of this principle is urged 

 without hesitation. 



PRINCIPLE V. A name is only a name, having no meaning 

 until invested with one by being used as the handle of a fact ; 

 and the meaning of a name so used, in zoological nomencla- 

 ture, does not depend upon its signification in any other con- 

 nection. 



REMARKS. The bearing of this principle upon the much desiredyf.i'//y of 

 names in Zoology, and its tendency to check those confusing changes which 

 are too often made upon philological grounds, or for reasons of ease, ele- 

 gance, or what not, may be best illustrated by the following quotation : - 



" It being admitted on all hands that words are only the conventional signs 

 of ideas, it is evident that language can only attain its end effectually by 

 being permanently established and generally recognized. This consideration 

 ought, it would seem, to have checked those who are continually attempting 

 to subvert the established language of zoology by substituting terms of their 

 own coinage. But, forgetting the true nature of language, they persist in 

 confounding the name of a species or [other] group with its definition; and 

 because the former often falls short of the fulness of expression found in the 



1 De Candolle advises botanists to " avoid making choice of names used in 

 Zoology." 



