358 Rules for Bendering the Nomenclature of Zoology Uniform. 



by others, and the signification of the name is consequently lost. Two 

 things are necessary before a zoological term can acquire any authority, 

 viz., definition and jmbliccdion. Definition properly implies a distinct 

 exposition of essential characters, and in all cases we conceive this to 

 be indisi^ensable, although some authors maintain that a mere enumer- 

 ation of the component species, or even a single type, is sufficient to 

 authenticate a genus. To constitute publication, nothing short of the 

 insertion of the above particulars in a printed book can be held sufficient. 

 Many birds, for histance, in the Paris and other continental museums, 

 shells in the British Museum (in Dr. Leach's time), and fossils in the 

 Scarborough and other public collections, have received MS. names, 

 which will be of no authority .until they are published. Nor can any un- 

 published descriptions, however exact (such as those of Forster, which 

 are still shut up in a MS. at Berlin), claim any right of priority till pub- 

 lished, and then only from the date of their publication. The same 

 rule applies to cases where groups or species are published, but not 

 defined, as in some museum catalogues, and in Lesson's 'Traite d'Orni- 

 thologie,' where many species are enumerated by name, without any 

 description or reference by which they can be identified. Therefore, 



§ 12. A name which has never been clearly defined in some pub- 

 lished work, should be changed for the earliest name by which the 

 object shall have been so identified. 



Specific names, when adopted as generic, must be changed. — The 

 necessity for the following rule will be best illustrated by an example. 

 The Corvus jyyrrhocorax, Linn., was afterward advanced to a genus 

 under the name of Pyrrhocorax. . Temminck adopts this generic name, 

 and also retains the old specific one, so that he terms the species 

 Pyrrhocorax Pyrrhocorax. The inelegance of this method is so great 

 as to demand a change of the specific name, and the species now stands . 

 as Pyrrhocorax ulpinus, Vieill. We propose, therefore, that 



§ 13. A new specific name must be given to a species when its old 

 name has been adopted for a genus which includes that species. 



N. B.- — It will be seen, however, below, that we strongly object to 

 the further continuance of this practice of elevating specific names into 

 generic. 



Latin orthograjyhy to he adhered to. — On the subject of orthography 

 it is necessary to lay down one proposition. 



§ 14. In writing zoological names, the rules of Latin orthography 

 must be adhered to. 



h\ Latinizing Greek words, there are certain rules of orthography 

 known to classical scholars which must never be departed from. For 

 instance, the names which modern authors have written Aipunemia, 



