12 NOMENCLATURE. 



less a task as to fix the limits of a species ; to accomplish that, we must ask 

 science to come to a stand-still ; but if we are willing to reduce nomencla- 

 ture to its proper functions, we need not waste, as we do now, our time upon 

 bibliography. 



The attempt to trace the origin of the generic names now in use among 

 Echinologists is far from giving satisfactory results. There are writers of 

 three distinct periods who have increased the confusion already existing 

 at their time. 



The first is the period of Linnaeus and Gnielin. They took no account 

 whatever of what there was good among their predecessors, ignoring as far 

 as Echinoderms were concerned much valuable work by Klein, Leske, Brey- 

 nius, which compares very favorably with many papers on the same subject, 

 even of the present clay. They were followed by Lamarck, who ignored as 

 completely as his illustrious predecessor the work previous to Linnaeus. 



In the second period we have the attempts of Gray, Blainville, Agassi/, 

 Desmoulins, Desor, to take into account, as far as possible, what had been 

 omitted by their predecessors, and to give due credit to Breynius, Klein, 

 Leske, Van Phelsuni, for whatever there was original in their memoirs. 

 Breynius, as early as 1732, had, to sonic extent, adopted a binomial nomen- 

 clature, accurately (for his period) discriminated genera and species, many 

 of which are readily recognized, but which had escaped the notice they 

 deserved till a comparatively recent period. 



In the third period, subsequent to the publication of the Rules of the Brit- 

 ish Association for the Revision of Nomenclature, we have the writers from 

 1845 up to the present time, Agassiz, Desor, D'Orbigny, Cotteau, Wright, 

 Forbes, A. Agassiz, Ltitken, Verrill, and others, who have attempted more or 

 less successfully to apply these rules, and have in many cases only increased 

 the existing confusion. By going back to the earliest writers, and restoring 

 as far as practicable the condition of things then existing, we can see how far 

 we must modify the nomenclature generally adopted by the Echinologists of 

 the present day, and yet give due credit to the pioneers of this department 

 of Zoology. In the discussion of this question I shall not be guided by 

 any castriron rules of priority, nor do I acknowledge the right of the British 

 Association, or of any other association of scientific men, to dictate how and 

 in what way certain fixed axioms (fixed only by them, and subsequently re- 

 modelled) shall be my guide in the matter of nomenclature. The authority 

 of great scientific names has just as little to do in this question, and I must 



