192 • CH, WARDELL STILES, 



to introduce some order by the application of general principles» 

 based upon the careful study of thousands of cases by raen in dif- 

 ferent groups. 



19. The case of Sphaerostoma Rudolphi, 1809. 



In 1898, Hassall and I published an inventory^) of the names 

 of genera thus far proposed for the Fasciolidae. In that list we called 

 attention to the fact that the genus Sphaerostoma, proposed by Ru- 

 dolphi in 1809, had been universally overlooked. 



My friend Looss has objected very seriously to the acceptance of 

 Sphaerostoma and has criticised us for — as he described it — taking 

 refuge in conjecture, in reference to this name. To any one who has 

 studied carefully the theory and practice of nomenclature, Looss' ar- 

 gument will be quite clear — not as a support of his assertions 

 regarding the genus in question, but as a practica! proof of the ad- 

 mission he has made on p. 523, to the effect that he is not well versed 

 in nomenclatural precedents in other fields of zoology. In view of 

 the apparent validity of his Statements, however, it may be well to 

 examine the case more closely. 



As stated in Note 48, Rudolphi proposed this genus as foUows: 

 '"''Quae corpore piano, quaeque tereti utantur, genera non sepa- 

 randa , limites enim certi vix adsunt ; sed species plurimae (potissimum 

 in piscibus obviae) poris glohosis, maximeque mohilibus, saepeque ex- 

 tantibus munitae, olim forsan sub Sphaerostomatis . . . nomine generi 

 peculari reserventur.^'' 



Looss also quoted part of this passage, yet immediately added 

 that there is not the slightest indication in Rudolphi as to the species 

 which he thought should especially ("speciell") be placed here. He 

 says that if some other authors should claim that Rudolphi referred 

 to such forms as : 



1) Fasciola clavata Menzies, 1791 [type of Hirudinella]; or 



2) F. macrostoma Rudolphi, 1803 [type of Urogonitnus] ; he would 

 be just as correct as we were in looking upon 



3) F. hramae [F. glohipora] as type of Sphaerostoma. 



He theu goes on to say that an author to-day might take glohi- 



1) Notes on parasites, 48, An inventory of the genera and sub- 

 genera of the Trematode family Fasciolidae, in: Arch. Parasitol., 1898, 

 p. 81—99. 



