64 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [March, '20 



If the original locality datum is incorrect or is misinter- 

 preted, of course worse consequences fallow.* A few of the 

 misnomers resulting from using such place names as the basis 

 of specific names may be cited: the millcweed called Asclepias 

 syriaca is an exclusively American plant; the parrot, Coriphi- 

 lus peruvianus is really from the South Sea Islands; the tody, 

 Todus mexicanus is a Porto Rican bird; while Chrysobothris 

 and Cicindela yield sufficient illustration of similar happen- 

 ings in insect nomenclature, each genus having a purely 

 American species named tranquebarica from the supposed type 

 locality in India. 



Naming species after cities, as baltimorensis, franciscana, 

 etc., is a particularly futile performance. It indicates noth- 

 ing of permanent value in the nomenclatorial history of the 

 species, and the city growing, as cities do, the collection of 

 real topotypes, in time becomes an impossibility. Place 

 names also are by no means permanent, and change in usage 

 of them virtually robs of significance names of organisms 

 based on the obsolete names. 



To sum up: names should have an application that the 

 shifts of time and accidents of circumstance are least likely 

 to render void. At their best, names are seldom commemora- 

 tive and then of eminently deserving individuals, rarely of 

 places. Most naturalists prefer that names have a descrip- 

 tive application, but this is not absolutely essential, meaning- 



*With reference to a bird name of this category namely that o f the red- 

 shafted flicker (Colaptes cafer), Elliot Coues, the noted ornithologist, voices 

 the following protest; "With every disposition to follow the dogma and 

 ritual of the A. O. U., I cannot bring myself to call this bird C. cafer, for 

 no better reason than because Picus cafer Gm. 1788, was mistaken for a 

 bird of the Cape of Good Hope! Say what we please in our canons, there 

 is something in a name after all, and 'the letter of the law killeth' when 

 wrenched from its spirit, in defiance of science and common sense. Indi- 

 vidually I cannot incur the penalty of deliberately using for a North Ameri- 

 can bird a name only applicable to one from South Africa. The fact that 

 " Cafer" is a sort of Latin for Caffraria or Caffrarian makes its use in this 

 connection as bad as "Hottentot Woodpecker" or "Zulu Flicker" would 

 be; and how would such a combination sound in plain English?" (Key 

 to North American Birds, Fifth Ed., Vol. 2, 1903, p. 601.) 



