24 Occufiional Notetf. 



The protest on this score, which id gaining ground, \a 

 nothing new. So far back as 1896 in a discussion which 

 took phice at a meeting of the Zoological Society, Sir E. 

 Eay Lankester, protesting against the " digging up " of old 

 names, suggested that an international committee should be 

 formed, not to draw up a code of rules, but to produce an 

 authoritative list of names — once and for all — about which 

 no lawyer-like haggling should hereafter be permitted. 

 Again, at a meeting of the Zoological Society in 1908, a 

 paper was read by Mr. Boulenger on the abuses resulting 

 from the strict application of the rule of prioiity in zoological 

 nomenclature, and on the means of protecting well-known 

 names. In the coarse of his ren^arks he said : — 



The worst feature of this abuse is uot so much the bestowal of un- 

 known names on well-known creatures, as the transfer of names from 

 one species to another. The names that were used uniformly by Cuvier, 

 Johannes Miiller, Owen, Agassiz, Darwin, Huxley, and many others 

 would no longer convey any meaning. Very often they woidd be mis- 

 understood; in fact, the very object for which Latin or Latinised names 

 were introduced would be defeated. It is all very well to talk of uni- 

 formity in the future, but surely we must have sume consideration for 

 the past. Names with which all general zoologists, anatomists, and 

 physiologists are familiar should be respected, and should be excepted 

 from the rule by virtue of what may be termed the pi-ivilege of pre- 

 scription. If biologists would agree to make that one exception to the 

 law of priority in nomenclature, things would adjust themselves well 

 enough, and we might hope to see realised some day what we all desire 

 — fixity in names, that we may readily understand tlie meaning of all 

 vn-iters, not only oyer the whole civilised world at the present day and 

 in the future, but back into the last century, which has marked so great 

 an advance in zoological science. Such a result would be attained by 

 protecting time-honoured names of well-known animals from the attacks 

 of the revisers of nomenclature. 



These remarks were generally approved, and the following 

 memorandum was drawn up and circulated amongst British 

 zoolooists. The signatures appended to it show that^ in this 

 country at least^ strict adherence to tiie rule of priority is 

 far from meeting with general support. 



The undersigned zoologists, while fully realising the justice and utility 

 of the rule of priority in the choice of scientific names for animals as 



