NOMENCLATURE. 15 



Lamarck, in 1801, established Nucleolites and Cassidulus. In 1816 he 

 transposed the species included in these genera, and we find in one case but 

 one, in the other not one, of the original species left in the genus ; this we 

 can interpret in two ways: either Lamarck learned something between 1801 

 and 1816, extended, with the material at his command, the definition of 

 the genera, and found that in 1801 he had included in Cassidulus species 

 which really should have been separated from it ; or else we must say, 

 Lamarck's interpretation of the genus Cassidulus in 1816 was incorrect, 

 the only correct definition is that of 1801. I prefer to take Lamarck's view 

 to my own or that of any other naturalist who, fifty years or more after- 

 wards, comes upon the stage and tells us what Lamarck meant or should 

 have meant. Here it is that our confusion begins. It is by our attempts 

 to interpret with our present knowledge a condition of things which we 

 can with very best intentions but faintly reconstruct, that we are frequently 

 doing gross injustice to previous workers. I will take another example, 

 that of Echinocardium Gray ; he established this genus in 1825, placed in 

 it what is now known as Moera atropos and Echinocardium cordatum. 

 Because he afterwards (1835) restricted the genus Echinocardium to the 

 second species (E. cordatus), and Agassiz subsequently placed in Schizaster 

 this same (S. atropos), together with S. canaliferus, must we for that reason 

 go back to the original meaning of Gray, restore Echinocardium for 

 Moera, cancel all the species of Echinocardium by giving them a new 

 generic name, — as Agassiz's Amphidetus cannot be retained, being syno- 

 nyme of Echinocardium, as modified by Gray, not of the original Echino- 

 cardium, — next make a new name for Schizaster, for that is synonyme of 

 the typical Echinocardium, and therefore must be dropped ? This is per- 

 haps an extreme case, but a similar mode of procedure has been adopted in 

 other somewhat less complicated cases, the proposed recent changes being 

 based upon old rectifications or emendations of the authors themselves 

 which late writers have not allowed. I frankly acknowledge I do not see 

 the strength of the argument which presumes to correct Lamarck fifty years 

 after he wrote, and correct him, not because he was wrong, but because he 

 ought not to have done something which the practice of certain Zoologists 

 of the present day disapproves. It may be highly creditable to a writer's 

 acumen and critical knowledge of the existing condition of nomenclature 

 to set up this man of straw and bravely knock him down, but it is not 

 Zoology, and the sooner this style of writing, based entnely upon books, 

 and not upon specimens, is clone away with the better. 



