General Notes. 181 



GROSSULARIA MARCESCENS. 



In the year 1874 a Japanese gooseberry was described by Maximowicz 

 in Bulletin de I'Academie Tmperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, 

 volume 19, page 250, under the name Ribes grossularioides. However, 

 Steudel in 1821 had published the same name, Ribes grossularioides, in 

 his Nomenclator Botanicus, page 691, for an American species, attributing 

 the name to Michaux, who evidently had used it as a manuscript or 

 herbarium name but had never himself published it. This older publi- 

 cation of the specific name grossularioides, in 1821, invalidates the later 

 use of the name grossularioides for any other species and it becomes 

 necessary, therefore, to give the Japanese species a new name. In 

 allusion to the persistence of the dried corolla on the mature fruit, the 

 name Grossularia marcescens is here proposed as a substitute for the 

 invalid name Ribes grossularioides of Maximowicz. The gooseberries are 

 regarded as constituting by themselves a genus, Grossularia, distinct from 

 Ribes, which comprises the currants. — Frederick V. Coville. 



PHACOCHCERUS AS THE GENERIC NAME OF THE AVARTHOGS. 



When the validity of a name which has been in universal use for a long 

 period is assailed, it is above all things important that the arguments 

 against its status should be definite and absolute, and not be open to 

 personal divergences of opinion. 



Now I hold that the case against Phacochcerus , as published by Doctor 

 Lyon in the General Notes for June* is not strong enough to warrant our 

 giving up so well known a name. In the first place the fact that it was 

 printed Phaco choerus by Cuvier no doubt influenced Doctor Lyon, but 

 an examination of the other similar footnotes in the Regne Animal shows 

 that such notes were printed indiscriminately joined up, hyphenated or 

 separate (Dasyprocta, Arcto-mys, Hydro choerus) so that no stress can be 

 laid on the printing of an individual name. Then we have not to deal 

 with what Cuvier meant to do, but what he did do, and he certainly 

 published the Latin name Phaco chcerus in connection with the warthogs. 

 Merely to give the explanation of the French Phaco-choeres he should have 

 given the Greek words — as indeed he did in other cases, e. g. "v\l/a-nrpvfivbs." 

 Finally Doctor Lyon quotes Fischer as the " first reviser," and if we take 

 him as such, we may say that in referring to ^'Phacochcerus F. Cuv. 

 apud. G. Cuv." as a validly formed name, even though synonymous 

 with that given by him (for which he unjustifiably claimed three years 

 priority) he accepted its standing as such, an acceptance there is not 

 sufficient reason for us to refuse. I am not denying the probable correct- 

 ness of Dr. Lyon's interpretation of Cuvier's meaning, but I claim that 

 technically there is not sufficient reason to make of Phacochcerus another 

 cantlidate for a place in the Fiat list. — OldUeld Thomas. 



* Proe. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. 28, p. 141. 



