THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 57 



With the exception of certain verbal modifications, this . law is identical 

 with the sixth section of the British Association rules, where it is applied 

 to genera only. 



5. In any subsequent alterations of the limits of a group, its name 

 should never be cancelled ; but should be retained either in a restricted or 

 an enlarged sense. 



The necessity for such a limitation is obvious ; otherwise a different 

 name would (or, could) be given by every author who differed from pre- 

 ceding ones in his ideas of the prec : '*e limitation of any group in question. 

 This indeed has already been done, and, if continued, will create lament- 

 able confusion ; but this limitation should itself be subject to one 

 exception, which may be formulated thus : 



6. But any assemblage so denned by an author as harshly to violate 

 the groupings of nature (as known to naturalists of his time), should be 

 cancelled. 



Such a rule would prevent the injury which might accrue to science by 

 too close an application of the preceding law. The parenthetical limita- 

 tion seems, however, to be necessary. 



II. Changes in the name of one group should not affect the names of 

 other groups. 



This follows as a corollary of the first canon, but it has been not 

 infrequently violated, and it is easy to perceive the cause. The nomen- 

 clature of higher groups,- notably of families and subfamilies, has, to a 

 considerable degree, been founded upon generic names, with the addition 

 of special collective endings to the root (see recommendation 1). Now, 

 when a generic name which has formed the basis of a family designation 

 has been found to be pre-occupied, it has been thought necessary by some 

 to recast the nomenclature of the higher group. But why ? After a name 

 has been long applied to a group, it ceases to have any intrinsic meaning 

 and is simply associated with the group itself, recalling it without reference 

 to any particular member of the same. It certainly would be agreeable if 

 we had a nomenclature in which each group should by the very association 

 of ideas recall its members ; but since that is utterly impossible, and we 

 have to deal with a mass of synonyms already tangled and intricate, our 

 problem is — how best to make our way out of the difficulty without a con- 

 tinual wrangling over names and entailing endless disputes upon future 

 generations. 



