226 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [May, ' 12 



Notes and Ne\vs 



ENTOMOLOGICAL GLEANINGS FROM ALL QUARTERS 

 OF THE GLOBE. 



STRICT PRIORITY IN NOMENCLATURE OR NOT? With regard to the 

 nomina conservanda, I should at present only be willing to vote to 

 keep the matter open. I think something will have to be done to 

 preserve us from disastrous nomenclatural changes, but it should be 

 done with care and deliberation and particularly with the knowledge 

 and consent of zoologists generally. I object very much to a recent 

 ruling of the committee on genera without species (last part of opinion 

 46, also last half of summary), and venture to think that it is contrary 

 to the spirit of the International Rules and to common sense. It is 

 this sort of thing which increases our difficulties, and will eventually 

 convert people to the plan of purely arbitrary selections of nomina con- 

 servanda. 



At the present time I think it is important to get every zoologist 

 to think seriously about these matters, and as many as possible to 

 ascertain precisely what will be the effect of particular rules or rulings 

 on their own special groups. I do not see how, under any circum- 

 stances, we could allow two generic names, spelled alike in zoologv ; 

 but I think a difference of one letter should suffice to prevent ho- 

 nonymy. THEO. D. A. COCKERELI.. 



While signing the protest against the strict application of the law 

 of priority, I do so with the provision that any general concur- 

 rence in such an opinion should not be accepted as a license for 

 every zoologist to adopt any names that he chooses. I believe that 

 the rules of nomenclature involving the law of priority should be 

 operative in the future in all cases, and in the past in the majority 

 of cases. I believe that no individual should be sanctioned in taking 

 it upon himself to waive them, but that in specific cases where clearly 

 greater convenience will result from setting them aside, that this 

 should be done by a centrally organized and authorized body, pre- 

 sumably the Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. I thoroughly 

 believe that such a body should work toward the compilation of a list 

 of nomina conservanda, and that the names of such a list, once adopt- 

 ed, should never be open to future change on nomenclatorial grounds. 

 As far as working justice to the older authors, our present laws 

 are at best ex post facto, and are not more likely to effect a real jus- 

 tice than would a list of nomina conservanda. But the latter would 

 accomplish a greater debt of justice to future generations, to whom it 

 is more due. It is they, and not the past, who must suffer from our 

 shortcomings. I believe in rules, I believe in laws, but I emphatically 

 believe in their limitations, and to bind ourselves by rules for the 



