48 BULLETIN 58, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



1813. Anuri Fischer, Zoognosia, 3 ed., I, p. 58. 



1825. Anonra I.,atreille, Fam. Nat. Regne Anim., p. 104. 



1828. Pygomolgn'i Ritgen, Nova Acta Acad. Leop. Carol., XIV, p. 278. 



1828. Arcrci Wagler, Isis, 1828, p. 859. 



1832. Batradiia Mueller, Isis, 1832 (p. 504). 



1833. Miura van der Hoeven, Handb. Dierk., II, Pt. 2. p. 307 

 1835. Heteromorpha Fitzinger, Ann. WienMus., I, p. 107. 

 1839. Raniformia Hogg, Mag. Nat. Hist. (n. s.). Ill, p. 271. 



1855. Batrachii van der Hoeven, Handb. Dierk., 2 ed., II, p. 468. 

 1866. Anura Haeckbl, Gen. MorphoL, II, p. cxxxii 

 1878. Acaudata Knauer, Naturg. Lurche, p. 100. 



The name adopted for this order varies greatly with the various 

 authors. Thus Salientia, Anura, and Ecaudata are used ahnost indis- 

 criminately. Of these Salientia is the oldest. 



It is perfectly true that the various rules for zoological nomencla- 

 ture do not compel a strict application of the law of priority to groups 

 higher than genera, and that the A. O. U. code specifically proclaims 

 this, but the principle underlying the modern way of fastening a name 

 to a genus is very different from that involved in naming an order or a 

 class. The ends in view are different, and the modus operandi must 

 also be different. Nobody nowadays in ap])lying a generic term 

 cares the least whether the name, as originally proposed, covers the 

 same aggregate of species, even approximately, as the genus to whicii 

 he attaches it, or not. It is enough that a single species, the type 

 species, is included in the original group and in the one adopted. 

 This, however, is a comparatively modern view. In the early days, 

 when generic terms were few, and long before the term " type-species" 

 or " genotype "( !) was invented, it happened quite frequently that 

 authors selected a new generic name for a group which contained the 

 essential elements of one previously named, simply because his group- 

 ing was not coextensive with that of his predecessor's. But as new 

 discoveries and closer studies multiplied the genera, and the views 

 as to their compass became more and more divergent, it was found 

 impossible to adhere to such a principle as far as generic terms were 

 concerned. 



Not so with the terms for orders and classes. It has always been 

 the recognized custom to employ a name embracing, at least approxi- 

 mately, an assembly of genera, or orders, coextensive with it when 

 first proposed. The inconvenience caused by the coining of nevv 

 names of groups higher than genera has been small com})ared to the 

 convenience of knowing approximately the extent of a group by the 

 name applied to it. A good reason why it is inconvenient and 

 mexpedient to apply strictly the law of priority to such higher groups 

 IS the fact that we know no such thing as a " type genus " or a '' type 

 order" by the aid of whicli the name of the order or the class can be 

 arbitrarily fixed, even if it were desirable to do so. 



