1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 219 



which that be, each reader must decide for himself) has lacked the 

 authority and the sanction that alone can make it of value. For we 

 must insist upon this point, if upon no other, that it is not the wording 

 of any particular law that is of consequence, but the power of enforcing 

 it. We venture to say that to the very best code that could possibly 

 be drawn up each individual zoologist would remain a recalcitrant, 

 were it only in so trivial a point as the insertion of a comma or the use 

 of a capital letter. 



If it be true that we come to some such impasse in whatever 

 direction we proceed, it is worth considering whether we cannot 

 follow some course more productive of finality than is this perpetual 

 codifying of our whims and fancies. And here we would take up and 

 push to their logical conclusion the suggestions that were thrown out 

 at the meeting by Mr. H. J. Elwes and the President. It is not 

 enough to imitate Mr. Elwes, and to follow the last monograph or the 

 last catalogue of some great museum ; for other monographers will 

 arise, and rival museums will publish rival catalogues, each with its 

 own system of nomenclature. Nor is it of much use to follow those 

 British ornithologists of whom the President told us, who some years 

 ago made a vow to adopt such and such fixed names for all the 

 British birds ; for the science of zoology is not confined to these 

 islands, and those who withdraw from the main stream of progress 

 will either find themselves left high and dry, or be forced to rejoin it 

 as laggards and out-of-date. But the course that might be pursued 

 is suggested to us by this very enterprise of the German Zoological 

 Society. Let us suppose that, instead of shrinking from the magni- 

 tude of the undertaking, instead of insinuating its impossibility, and 

 instead of drawing their purse-strings tighter, the zoologists of the 

 world were to give a mandate to the German Zoological Society to 

 proceed with the work, and were to assist them generously by every 

 means in their power, then we should have a complete set of names 

 for all living species of animals. This, it is true, would not be enough. 

 To draw up such a correct list of names without consulting the 

 palaeontologists is impossible, and, even were such a list drawn up, it 

 would, for the purpose we now intend, be valueless. But let us 

 further suppose that some body, such as the German or the English 

 Zoological Society, could be found to draw up a list of all animal 

 species, fossil as well as recent, then it would at all events be 

 perfectly possible for the zoologists of the world to accept that list, 

 and to say, " Whether these names be right or wrong according to 

 this or that code of nomenclature, we do not know and we do not 

 care ; but we bmd ourselves to accept them in their entirety, and we 

 hereby declare that the date when this list was closed for the press 

 shall henceforward be the date adopted as the starting-point for our 

 nomenclature." 



We have put this proposition in a broad manner ; there are, of 

 course, numerous minor points to be taken into consideration. The 



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