Rules Jor Bender ing the ISiomenclatiire oj Zoology Lmjomi. 863 



h. Ancient names of animals applied in a \wong sense. — It has been 

 customary, in numerous cases, to apply the names of animals found in 

 classic authors at random to exotic genera or species which were wholly 

 unknown to the ancients. The names of Cebus, Callithrix, Spiza, Kitta, 

 StrutJms, are examples. This practice ought by no means to be encour- 

 aged. . The usual defense for it is, that it is impossible now to identify 

 the species to which the name was anciently applied. But it is certain 

 that if any traveler will take the trouble to collect the vernacular 

 names used by the modern Greeks and Italians for the vertebrata and 

 mollusca of Southern Europe, the meaning of the ancient names may, 

 in most cases, be determined with the greatest precision. It has been 

 well remarked that a Cretan fisher-boy is a far better commentator on 

 Aristides' " History of Animals," than a British or German scholar. 

 The use, however, of ancient names, ichen correctly applied, is most de- 

 sirable, for, "in framing scientific terms, the appropriation of old 

 words is preferable to the formation of new ones." 



I. Adjective generic names. — The names of genera are, in all cases, 

 essentially substantive, and hence adjective terms cannot be employed 

 for them without doing violence to grammar. The generic names of 

 Hians, criniger, cursorius, nitidula, etc., are examples of this incorrect 

 usage. 



in. Hybrid 7iamcs. — Compound words, whose component parts are 

 taken from two different languages, are great deformities in nomen- 

 clature, and naturalists should be especially guarded not to introduce 

 any more such terms into zoology, which furnishes too many examples 

 of them already. We have them compounded of Greek and Latin, 

 as Dendrofaleo, Gymnocorous, Monoculus, Arhorophila, jlavigaster ; 

 Greek and French, as Jaeamaralcyon, Jacamerops ; and Greek and 

 English, as Bidlockoides, Gilhertsocrinites. 



n. Names cloi^ely resembling other names already used. — By rule 10, 

 it was laid down, that when a name is introduced which is identical 

 with one previously used, the later one should be changed. Some 

 authors have extended the same principle to cases where the latter 

 name, when correctly written, only approaches in form, without wholly 

 coinciding with the earlier. We do not, however, think it advisable 

 to make this law imperative, first, because of the vast extent of our 

 nomenclature, which renders it highly difficult to find a name which 

 shall not bear more or less resemblance in sound to some other ; and, 

 secondly, because of the impossibility of fixing a limit to the degree of 

 approximation beyond which such a laAv should cease to operate. We 

 content ourselves, therefore, with putting forth this proposition merely 

 as a recommendation to naturalists, in selecting generic names, to avoid 



