XX THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



definite periodicals, of which one or more might be assigned to each large division of the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms. Even under this Utopian arrangement the requirements 

 of adequate publication would be very much at the mercy of difi'erent contributors. 



Looking only to the Amphipoda, one sees and feels the natural tendency in those 

 who describe actual specimens to multiply genera and species, while in those who classify 

 the results obtained by others, the tendency is to be impatient of minute distinctions, 

 to rejoice at being able to unite two species into one, and to ignore one genus in favour 

 of another which they regard as embracing it. Nothing but good is done by those who 

 pare away the superfluities of nomenclature by discovering that the same genus or species 

 has been described under more than one name, but it is a question whether much profit 

 has resulted from attempts to discard small genera in favour of a large comprehensive 

 genus. In the history of the subject we see that the names of the rejected genera almost 

 invariably obtain eventual acceptance, so that the attempts at suppression only result 

 in a confused synonymy. Few authors, for instance, would now dispense with Melita 

 and Maira of Leach, which to Milne-Edwards appeared useless and even injurious sub- 

 divisions of Gammarus} Those who take the lead in introducing minute subdivisions 

 do, indeed, force the hand of their successors, since difi'erences which might well have 

 been regarded as specific under a moderately wide genus, have to be accounted generic 

 when the already existing genera of a family are separated by very small distinctions. 

 But premature interference rather increases than remedies' the confusion, although, 

 when knowledge of the subject has largely advanced, the time and opportunity for a 

 general revision may arrive and be thoroughly welcome. 



As far as the form of a name is concerned, it has seemed to me beyond all question best 

 to adopt that which the author of the name himself gave to it. This was far from being 

 my original opinion. It is, of course, a delightful efi"ort of criticism, and a token of one's 

 own intrinsic superiority, to be able to correct the spelling of some eminent man of 

 science. But in actual practice each correction makes a new name, adding therefore 

 to the synonymy, and often making necessary the citation of two authorities instead 

 of one. Sometimes the corrected form of a name comes into collision with a genus 

 established before or since in some other branch of zoology. Sometimes a name is 

 inconveniently lengthened in the efi'ort to make it conform to the laws of philology, and 

 a syllable is inserted which the originator of the name perhaps intentionally left out. 

 As Leach has shown, it is not necessary for a scientific name to have a derivation at all, 

 so that in the last resort the names which do not satisfy the laws of classical formation 

 may be defended on the ground that one congeries of letters is as good as another. At 

 any rate, for the purposes of natural history, the fixity of a name is of far more importance 

 than any indirect lesson in scholarship of which it may be made the text. I may as 

 well, however, confess that in respect to the genus Amphitlioe I have not had courage to 



' Hist. Nat. des Crust., t. iii. p. 54. 



J 



