92 Transactions of the Society. 



Professor Marcellin Boule informs me that lie can throw no light 

 upon the Models above referred to ; neither the moulds nor any of the 

 Models are preserved with the others in his Laboratory at the Musee 

 de Paleontologie, and he doubts whether they were ever issued. 

 Mr. C. Davies Sherborn, who has made an exhaustive study of the 

 Models, shares the same doubt, and his MS. list in the copy of the 

 Catalogue issued with the Models, in the Library at the British Museum 

 (Natural History), compiled as the result of his researches, lacks, like 

 mine, the No. 115. I can find no indication anywhere of what this 

 Model was intended to be. Madame Henri d'Orbigny, who possesses 

 a very complete collection of d'Orbignyan works and unpublished 

 documents, tells me that if any publication of these Models was ever 

 made her husband did not possess it or know anything about it. 



APPENDIX E. 



The Geneeic and Specific Names of the d'Oebignyan 



foeaminifeea. 



The principles which guided d'Orbigny in his apposition of generic and 

 specific names has been set out in this Memoir (see p. 17). We may 

 say that " Uheravit animani suam " upon the subject on pp. xlvi et seq. 

 of the Introduction to the " Prodrome " (Bibl. XV.) in a lengthy and 

 ingenious dissertation on the princij^les to be adopted. The most 

 serious point to which exception must be taken was his view that the 

 author of a species was to be regarded as he who removed the specific 

 name into a new genus, a direct contravention of the accepted system. 

 His view (op. cit. p. liii) was that it is inconvenient and unjust to both 

 authors to make the original author responsible for a genus of which 

 he was ignorant, and to deprive the author who removes a specific name 

 to a new genus of the honour of his discoverv and correction. Conse- 

 quently in the " Prodrome " we find hundreds of names claimed by 

 d'Orbigny, and so set down, which in conformity with accepted rules 

 should have been ascribed to the first founder of the species : thus 

 among the Foraminifera alone, FohjstomeJla crispa, is attributed to 

 Lamarck, instead of (Linne) ; ^ Orbitoidcs papyracea. becomes " d'Or- 

 bigny " instead of (Boubee),'- and countless other instances might be 

 cited. (See pp. 5-4 (note 2), G5, QQ.) 



Another principle which has more to commend itself is his objection 

 to descriptive qualitative names such as grandis, gigas, minutus, and so 

 on. " These names," he observes, "are only true when larger or smaller 

 species are non-existent in the same genus," and he concludes that 

 " among specific names those which have no reference to the form are 

 the best, precisely because they mean nothing." ^ 



1 XIT., p. 125. 2 XV., vol. ii., p. 334. 



= XV., vol. i., Tntrod., p. 50. 



