ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



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PHILADELPHIA, PA., MARCH, 1911. 



THE NOMENCLATURE QUESTION. 



Dr. C. W. Stiles, Secretary of the International Commission 

 on Zoological Nomenclature, has addressed a letter to the Edi- 

 tor of Science, published in the issue of that journal for Jan- 

 uary 20, 1911, on the subject of Special Committees for Zoo- 

 logical Nomenclature. He writes : 



"The International Commission on Zoological* Nomenclature is try- 

 ing a plan of cooperation with international committees representing 

 the various branches of zoology in an effort to determine in how far it 

 will be possible to reach a unanimous agreement upon the names of the 

 most important zoological genera, together with the type species of the 

 genera in question The plan adopted is for the secre- 

 tary to select three or more specialists of unquestioned international 

 reputation in a given group, and to request these workers to add to 

 their committee any colleagues whom they may desire. It is hoped that 

 by this means preliminary studies of fundamental and permanent value 

 may be conducted, and that the contending factions in respect to nomen- 

 clature, may be harmoniously united. 



The secretary of the commission on nomenclature is adopting the 

 plan of taking man as a center, first working out, so far as may be 

 done unanimously, names to be adopted for the animals most intimate- 

 ly associated with man, and while the undertaking may require years 

 of patient labor, it is hoped eventually to establish a list of not less than 

 ten thousand generic names, agreed upon unanimously, first by the spe- 

 on nomenclature. It is hoped, further, that by this plan an immense 

 cial committee, and then passed upon unanimously by the commission 

 number of useless synonyms can be unanimously agreed upon as such, 

 and gradually eliminated from general zoological literature. 



The scheme naturally depends upon the amount of cooperation on 

 the part of the special committees, which will be formed as rapidly as 

 the work will justify." 



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