62 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [March, '2O 



be taken, therefore, to avoid the use. of preoccupied names. 

 Every name used for any form, variety, subspecies or species 

 of the same genus in any part of the world, should be taken 

 into consideration, and a safer rule is to avoid using a name 

 that has ever been used in the same family. 



This requires many names, and the problem of finding 

 them apparently has appalled various workers, as they have 

 taken "the easiest way" and resorted to inordinate use* of 

 names derived from those of the collector and place of collec- 

 tion. The idea of dedicating a species to another person as a 

 mark of affection or esteem is commendable, but overdone 

 it ceases to be a distinction. If you have named a form for 

 some one as an expression of genuine respect or other form of 

 real appreciation, do not cheapen your homage by subse- 

 quently naming numerous forms for mere collectors of mater- 

 ial you chance to have in hand; it is entirely possible that 

 the form may have been collected a century before by some- 

 one else. Another type of scientific name derived from per- 

 sonal names is that immortalizing an error or oversight on 

 the part of the original author, resulting in use of a preoccu- 

 pied name. This form of personal name is a doubtful en- 

 comium and perhaps in many cases is not intended as a corn- 

 analysis, it represents the views of another individual, between which 

 and your views, posterity will be the final and no doubt just judge. In 

 mathematics, the most exact of the so-called exact sciences, approxima- 

 tions are freely used, and some of them are among the most valuable pos- 

 sessions of the science. Surely taxonomists working in one of the most 

 inexact of all fields of science should be satisfied with approximations, and 

 what is more to the point, recognize that they are only approximations, 

 and not to be taken as immutable entities, nor fit subjects for pedantic 

 positiveness, when in both respects, they are the opposite. 



*To cite, but not to identify, an instance of such overuse of geographic 

 and personal names, reference may be made to a series of papers on exotic 

 plants, in which 350 new species are named. Seventy-one of these specific 

 names are of geographical derivation and 59 of them are based on the name 

 of the single collector. Unfortunately there is no canon of nomenclature 

 designed to curb such work, but a priori, one would expect that the naming 

 by one author of 59 new species for a single individual collector in a single 

 series of papers on organisms of a restricted locality would be prevented 

 by the dictates of reason and good taste. 



