DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



325 



series. Plaisancien and Diceratien are 

 minor divisions on the time-scale, which 

 are doubtless familiar enough to the stu- 

 dents of Pliocene or of Middle Jurassic 

 rocks, but which may cause the or- 

 dinary geologist a journey to the public 

 library and prolonged search. Feuer- 

 stein and Oberen Mergel-schichten are 

 terms the meaning of which is absolutely 

 governed by the context, or by the 

 place in which the author happens to 

 live; stratigraphically considered, there 

 can be no value in such words as fire- 

 stone and upper marl-beds. As for 

 Knorrithone, it is simply a vulgar bar- 

 barism, the offspring of specialism and 

 illiteracy, which may do well enough 

 for the notebook of a field-geologist, 

 but is out of place in the official pub- 

 lication from which it is culled. A 

 couple of friends may talk of the 'Bel. 

 quad, beds' or the 'corang zone,' but a 

 sense of respect for their science, no 

 less than a feeling for foreign readers, 

 should keep these colloquialisms out of 

 their serious publications. 



Akin to the instance last mentioned 

 is the slovenly habit indulged in by 

 many zoologists of referring to a species 

 by its trivial name alone, without men- 

 tioning the generic name, which is an 

 equally essential component of the name 

 of the species. This is especially a 

 custom with entomologists of the baser 

 sort, who, in matters nomenclatorial, 

 seem to be capable of anything. With 

 them as with other classes of natural- 

 ists, this apparent familiarity is prob- 

 ably due to their ignorance that the 

 >ame has been applied to species of, it 

 may be, twenty other genera. They 

 would be less prone to the habit if they 

 knew that zoologists of wider knowl- 

 edge regard it as the hall-mark of 

 provincialism. 



What is true of geological forma- 

 tions and of species applies also to 

 genera. Until the reform proposed by 

 Prof. A. L. Herrera is adopted, 

 the scientific names of animals and 

 plants will not be self-explanatory. 

 How many scientific men, asks the in- 

 genious Mexican, outside the system- 



artists of the group, understand what is 

 meant by Spinolis zena? Is it a mush 

 room, an ant, a rose, a spider or a 

 monkey? Some names are intended to 

 indicate the class to which the plant 

 or animal belongs; thus a name ending 

 in crinus is pretty sure to belong 

 to a crinoid, one ending in ceras 

 may be a fossil mollusc belonging to 

 the Ammonoidea; graptus is fairly cer- 

 tain to be a graptolite, and saurus a 

 fossil reptile. The principle might well 

 be extended, and systematists should at 

 least refrain from applying a termi- 

 nation tacitly ear-marked for a particular 

 group to a new genus belonging to an 

 other group. If the name of an Echino- 

 derm genus ends in cystis, the reader 

 naturally supposes that the animal be- 

 longs to the extinct class Cystidea, and 

 he is not a little disturbed if he discovers 

 that it is a recent sea-urchin. How- 

 ever, these things are so, and will con- 

 tinue to be so, until people realize the 

 responsibility that rests on the proposer 

 of a new name. It is unnecessary to 

 do more than recall the fact that, ow- 

 ing to inadvertence or ignorance, the 

 same name has often been applied to 

 more than one kind of organism, and 

 may for years continue to be used in 

 both senses, while many names well- 

 known in zoology occur also in botan- 

 ical nomenclature. 



The point we would emphasize is 

 this: Considering the difficulties that 

 inevitably spring from such a state of 

 affairs, it is the more incumbent on 

 writers to explain the nature or sys- 

 tematic position of the organism about 

 which they are writing. Merely to give 

 the name, even if it chance to be cor 

 rect and elsewhere unappropriated, is not 

 enough. Still less is this satisfactory 

 when the name has been used in more 

 than one sense. How often does a zoolo- 

 gist spend time and trouble in looking 

 up a paper on some genus in which he 

 believes himself to be interested, only to 

 find that the subject of the article is 

 some different animal, or even a plant, 

 bearing the same name. To show how 

 real a grievance this may be, let us give 



