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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

 XL — The Misuse of the Index Kewensis. 



At the risk of wearying the readers of this Journal by a farther 

 note on the vexed question of nomenclature, I am compelled to 

 enter a protest against the mischievous misuse which seems likely 

 to be made of Mr. Jackson's Index, and indeed is now being made 

 by some botanists. 



There are already sufficient agencies at work upon the upsetting 

 of nomenclature to render any addition to their number undesirable. 

 But the confusion at present introduced, much of it unnecessarily, 

 is as nothing to that which will ensue if the method adopted by 

 Mr. Druce in the Annals of Scottish Natural Histurij for April (p. 108) 

 be followed. 



The paper on the Lomlun Catalogue which Mr. Druce printed in 

 the Annals for January, and which was previously offered to this 

 Journal, has already been criticized. Mr. Arthur Bennett and Mr. 

 Marshall* have commented upon it with a severity which I cannot 

 consider undeserved, and a short paragraph in these pagesf suffi- 

 ciently indicated grounds upon which it was open to criticism. 

 Yet Mr. Druce still urges on his wild career, and in the April 

 number of the Annals proceeds to point out "other changes" 

 which "will still have to be made if we adhere to the law of 

 priority." 



If Mr. Druce had taken the trouble to look up the references 

 which he cites at second-hand from the Index Kewensis, there 

 would be less ground of complaint. Though it seems to be repre- 

 hensible to employ the work solely as an aid to name-changing, 

 there is no doubt it can so be used, and any one who is ambitious 

 of seeing his name appended to new combinations can no doubt 

 secure it by this means. But unless he takes the trouble to verify 

 his references, even this petty gratification will be denied him. 

 I do not suggest that Mr. Druce has been actuated by this motive, 

 though I confess I am unable to discover what object he has in 

 view. I propose to call attention to one or two of the last twelve 

 changes which he has proposed, and to show that on other grounds 

 his mode of procedure is open to criticism. 



" Horkelia, Eeichb., ex Bartling, ' Nar. [sic] Ord.,' 7G (1830) 

 appears to be earlier than Wolffia, Hork., in ' Linnsea,' xiii. p. 389 

 (1839). Our plant would be Horkelia arrhiza (L.). It was the 

 Lenma arrhiza of Linnaeus." 



Now if Mr. Druce had referred to Bartling's Ordines Naturales 

 Plantarum, he would have found : — 



" Wolfia Hork. (Horkelia Reichenb.)." 

 And if he had looked up what he calls "Hork. in 'Linufea'" — 

 meaning thereby, as Mr. Jackson more accurately notes, a paper by 

 Schleiden in which Horkel's name is cited — he would have found 

 Schleideu's protest against the change. 



* Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist. April, 1896, pp. 109-112. 

 t Journ. Bot. 1896, 95, 



