Chapter II 



AN ESSAY ON NOMENCLATURE 



Whoever sets forth a system of groups finds himself under the necessity of making 

 responsible decisions as to names. The kingdoms have received more names than one 

 (Table 1 ), and so have nearly all of the major groups within them: it has here been 

 necessary to decide as to the validity and application of the names Flagellata and 

 Mastigophora, Rhodophyceae and Florideae, Rhizopoda and Sarcodina, and many 

 others. 



TABLE 1. Names Applied by Various Authors to the Kingdoms 

 OF Systems of Four Kingdoms 



Authors 



Kingdoms 



In dealing with plants, with animals, or with bacteria, it is necessary to observe 

 the codes of nomenclature enacted by international congresses for the respective 

 groups: the botanical code (Fournier, 1867; Lanjouw, 1952), with amendments 

 enacted in 1954; the zoological code of 1889 as amended in 1948 and 1953 (issue of 

 an edition incorporating the amendments is expected; Hemming, 1954); and the 

 bacteriological code (Buchanan et al., 1948). Breach of the appropriate code renders 

 an author liable to the penalty of having his work treated as nullity. 



The existence of three sets of rules for one thing, and the continual amendment of 

 the older codes, are evidence of imperfection. It will not be purely destructive to 

 point out certain anomalies in the codes as they stand. 



The zoological code pretends to overrule the principles of grammar in treating 

 specific epithets as names. It is true that some of these words are names: the Catus in 

 Felis Catus is a name of the cat, and the Mays in Zea Mays is a name of maize. But 

 the great majority are adjectives; the sapiens in Homo sapiens is not by itself a des- 

 ignation of man, and the vulgarc in Hordeum vulgarc is not a name of barley. It is a 

 further offense against grammar that the code prescribes, as the names of all families 

 of animals, adjectives in the feminine. Applied originally to families of birds, Aves, 

 these names were unobjectionable; but the names of the kingdom and of the over- 

 whelming majority of its subordinate groups are neuter. 



The botanical code as published with its appendages makes a book of more than 

 two hundred pages. A statement of principles, in which the last clause provides for 

 exceptions, occupies two pages. The definite rules and recommendations occupy 

 about thirty-five pages; one who studies them critically will find that they prescribe 

 more than one procedure not warranted by principle. A list of names maintained or 

 rejected irrespective of principle occupies about seventy pages. These things mean 

 that current botanical nomenclature is only within limits a matter of rule; it is to a 

 considerable extent governed by enactments of the nature of ex post facto laws and 

 bills of attainder. 



