" Observations on Rules /or Nomenclature" 201 



zoological " rules" which is less open to objection than that 

 which recommends Xk'dX families should be named after their 

 most prominent genus, with the termination idee or adce. It in- 

 troduces no new terms to the science or the memory , but, select- 

 ing from the existing stock such as are in general the most 

 familiarly known, it forms, by a slight change in the termina- 

 tion, a new set of names which express the exact station and 

 relations of the groups to which they are applied. This ap- 

 plication of words ending in idee is moreover perfectly con- 

 formable to classical usage. The term Alcmceonidce, for in- 

 stance, was applied to the house or family which included 

 Alcmceon himself and his immediate relations. Therefore Mr. 

 Ogilby, who professes great respect for classical usage, ought 

 in consistency to apply the term Simiadce to the anthropoid 

 Quadrumana of the old world, thus including both those spe- 

 cies known to the ancients as Simice, and the other species 

 and genera which are allied to them. But when Mr. O. ap- 

 plies the term to the American species in order "to express the 

 obvious and important relations which these animals bear to 

 the true Simice," he seems to be infringing both modern and 

 ancient " rules for nomenclature, 1 ' for the termination idee im- 

 plies, — not the resemblance of one group to another, — but the 

 inclusion in a larger group of the smaller one from which the 

 named is derived. In order to express the relations of the 

 American group to the true Simice, Mr. O. should rather have 

 termed them Simioidce. In the same way Mr. Ogilby's term 

 Gliridce on being placed before a naturalist for the first time 

 would immediately suggest the idea, — not of a group resem- 

 bling or analogous to the dormice, — but of a group containing 

 the dormice. 



Mr. O. enquires " What would science gain by the change" 

 from the term Simiadce to Cebidce, as applied to the American 

 species ? I answer, it would gain a term implying that the 

 family contains the genus Cebus (which it does) instead of 

 one implying that it contains the genus Simia (which it does 

 not). Mr. O. further writes " The very advantage of Si'me- 

 moria technical is entirely in favour of my nomenclature, 

 and would be totally destroyed by the adoption of the very 

 rule which Mr. S. intends should secure it." This is, I think, 

 rather too unqualified. All candid persons will admit that 

 when the term Cebidce is used to express the family which 

 contains the genus Cebus, the advantages of a memoria tecli- 

 nica are not totally destroyed. 



In the communication to which Mr. O.'s paper refers, I re- 

 marked, that " when the name of a genus has once become 

 well established, it should never be dropped, whatever be the 



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