6:2-2 OLDFIELD THOMAS 



unlikely that a man who did this, who also always formed 

 Greek compound substantival names for his genera (e. g. Macro- 

 glossus, Rhinolophus, Merjaderma, etc. ), and who, so far as I am 

 aware, never used a specific name for a generic one — in spite 

 of the then fashion for doing so — should , merely in the tail 

 of the paper on Orycleropus, without any explanation whatever, 

 have proposed as a new generic name a word like aculeala^ Latin, 

 adjectival , and specific. It may be noted that " genre " used in 

 connection with the set of names referred to, was at that date 

 a word of general meaning, equivalent to our "kind", and 

 was not necessarily intended to represent tlie technical word 

 genus. 



It is further said that the question is not what Geoffroy 

 intended to do, but what he did do in the matter. How far this 

 debateable principle is true generally need not here be discussed, 

 as the wording of the sentence in question is already so doubt- 

 ful that it would only have been by clear evidence of intention 

 that " oculeaia " could have been brought in at all. 



