PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 163 



tions for tbe advanceuieut of science, a description is necessary as the 

 basis of permanent nomenclature, but like many of the other rules pro- 

 pounded in those codes, there is no proper logical basis therefor. If a 

 description is necessary, it is necessary that the description should be 

 apt, but, as every naturalist is well aware, the description is completely 

 ignored in practice. We adopt, for example, the name Pcrea and many 

 others from Linnaeus and his successors, but inasmuch as those names 

 were applied by older naturalists to forms that are now relegated to 

 distinct families, it will be obvious that no regard whatever is paid to 

 the definitions. This is recognized to such an extent that it is now ad- 

 mitteil that a definition is only necessary to show that the writer had 

 some idea as to what he was treating about. In the case in question, 

 (1), on the one hand, it is evident from the words that the author of 

 Caulolatiliis did have an adequate idea as to both what he was writing 

 of and as to the true distinctions of the fish considered, and (li), on the 

 other hand, that the author of the name Delcaya had not the least con- 

 ception of the nature of the form he de.^cribed, and that the name orig- 

 inated simply from an almost inexcusable blunder and ignorance of the 

 subject he ventured to write upou. There would therefore seem to be 

 no doubt that in any case the name Gaulolatilus should be retained in 

 preference to DeJ:aija. But it so happens that there is no comi)licati<)n 

 in the consideration of the choice of names even from the extreme stand- 

 point from which it is viewed by Messrs. Jordan and Gilbert. The name 

 Delcaya is inadmissible as the denomination of the Latiloid fish, if for no 

 other reason, because the same name under the form Dekmjia had been 

 applied previously by Messrs. H. Milne Edwards and Haime to a genus 

 of Corals of the family Chwtetidce. (Dekayia, R. Milne Edwards et J. 

 Haime, Monographic des Polypiers fossiles des Terrains Palteozoi'ques in 

 Archives du Museum d' Histoire Naturelle, t. 5, p. 151, 1851; H. Milne 

 Edwards, Histoire Naturelle desporallaires ou Polypes proprement dits, 

 t. 3, p. 283, 1860.) 

 The history of the genus may therefore be epitomized as follows : 



Caulolatilus. 



Synonymy. 



=Uaulolatihis Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. PMla., [v. 14, ] p. 240, 1862. (Characters indi- 

 cated.) 



=Dekaya Cooper, Proc. Cal. Acad. Nat. Sci., v. 3, p. 70, 1864. (Described, but errone- 

 ously, and name preoccupied by Edwards and Haime in 1851.) 



=Canlolatilus Gill, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., [v. 17,] p. 66, 1865. (Fully de- 

 scribed. — Adopted by Cooper (later), Poey, Bleeker, Goode and Bean, Jordan 

 & Gilbert (at first.) 



=Dekaya Jordan cf Gilbert, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., v. 4, p. 53, 1880. (Name revived for 

 Caulolatilus.) 



latilus sp. Cuv. et Val., Gilnther, etc. 



Type Caulolatilus chry8ops= Latilus chrysops C. & V. 



