(XX) 



nnniher of specimens which sire later found to belong to the same species, be 

 they i)ractically identical or be they very different in appearance. Preference is 

 given to the first name, though the species may later have been much better 

 described under another name. Nobody with a sense of responsibility will now- 

 adays re-name a species, variety, or genus of which he knows that it has a 

 name, on the ground that the original definition does not apply to all the 

 specimens of the species, or all the species of the genus, for which the original 

 name is now employed. Everybody who agrees that for the sake of a stabile 

 nomenclature the first name should strictly be preserved, gives to the first 

 individual or individuals which became known to science an importance in respect 

 to nomenclature which none of the later-discovered specimens can acquire. 



Now, if a definition is not sufficiently precise to recognise by it the species 

 or variety, there is one way of solving the riddle, accepted by all systematists, 

 we think. If there should be somebody who objects to this means of finding out 

 the meaning of published but insufficiently defined names, and advocates that 

 such names should be dropped, he will doubtless retract the objection, if he comes 

 to think of the consequences. To drop such names, though theoretically justi- 

 fied, is impossible, as such a procedure would give the careless worker and 

 the ambitious amateur of the worst sort an excuse for inventing new names 

 wholesale. The means referred to of ascertaining the meaning of an original 

 definition is the comparison of the original specimens. If they are not pre- 

 served (or if the author has based the name on an inaccurate figure or on 

 an insufficiently precise description of an earlier writer), the name cannot take 

 priority over another name ; it may be put down as a query synonym under 

 some species with which the definition agrees best, or may be enumerated as 

 species incleterminata at the end of the catalogue of the group. There are very 

 few defined names of Sphingidae which we cannot refer with certainty to any 

 species known to us : Sphinx ixion and Sphinx delis of Linne ; Sphinx leuco- 

 phaeata and Chaerocampa thalassina of Clemens ; Smerinthus decolor, Sphinx 

 trojanus, Chaerocampa brasiliensis, Macroglossa tristis, and Oenosanda chinensis 

 of Schaufuss, are examples. If the originals are there and are sufficiently well 

 preserved, we may be spared all difficulties, or we may get more deeply entangled 

 in the meshes of nomenclatorial controversy according as we find one or more 

 originals. Let ns consider the two cases separately. 



(1) If the species (or variety) was based on one individual, or, at all 

 events, if only one individual (authentic, of course) is preserved, and there is 

 nothing in the description which distinctly points to the definition being based 

 on several different specimens, we are quite certain of what the name applies 

 to. And that is all we require. 



(2) If the species was based on several specimens, we may find that they 

 belong to one species (or variety), or to more than one : — 



ifi) If they are actually of one sjiecies (or variety), there is again no 

 uncertainty about the application of the name. But we must remember that to 

 pronounce two or more individuals to be specifically the same is nothing else 



