tTz' ] CiiAi'.MAN, What are Type Specimens ? 59 



igiz 



WHAT ARE TYPE SPEC IMENS ? HOW SHOULD THEY 

 BE NAMED ? 



By F. ("hai'MAN. AT..S., Paheontologist, National Museum. 

 {Read before the Field Naiuralists' Club of Victoria, 8th July, 191 2.) 

 In scientific work of any kind it is necessary to have a clear 

 notion of the meaning of the terms we use, and this ai)i)lies in 

 a very special sense to the definitions of type specimens. In 

 the first place, what is a type ? To quote Dr. (j. B. Goode * : 

 — " By a type is meant a specimen which has been used by the 

 author of a systematic paper as the basis of detailed study, 

 and as the foundation of a specific name. In cases where a 

 considerable number of specimens has been used, it is desirable 

 to separate one or more as being primary types, while the 

 other specimens, which may have been used in the same study 

 for the purpose of comparison, may be regarded as collateral 

 types." 



Since not a few scientific workers attach an uncertain value 

 to the terms type and cotype, the latter term often being 

 used to mean "typical of" or "compared with," the fol- 

 lowing notes are offered to show how the fundamental kinds of 

 type specimens may be concisely denoted by terms having 

 strictly definite meanings. At the outset, the ideas of " type " 

 and " typical " must be kept strictly apart, in order to avoid 

 confusion ; and it is better to use the terms " holotype " for 

 principal type instead of " type." As regards the name for a 

 typical form, Dr. Bather writes thus f : — " For this kind of 

 type (central type), far removed from a type specimen, we 

 want a name ; and as the word ' type ' has been stolen from us 

 it will save confusion to avoid it altogether." That author 

 further remarks : — " Perhaps the word ' norm,' with its 

 adjectival form ' normal,' would give the meaning most nearly, 

 though normal has, of course, its more literal sense of ' right 

 angles to.' The norm of a species varies with locality or with 

 horizon, becoming in the former case the norm of a sub-species, 

 in the latter case the norm of a mutation." 



The importance of tyi)e specimens to the worker in any grouj) 

 of animal or vegetable life, whether recent or fossil, cannot be 

 overrated. That types should be treated with especial care 

 is too obvious to speak of at length. As a case in point, the 

 destruction by fire at the Garden Palace, Sydney, in 1882, of 

 the W. B. Clarke collection of New South Wales fossils de- 

 scribed by De Koninck has caused serious difficulties to Aus- 

 tralian j)ala_ontologists when describing similar faunas con- 

 taining De Koninck's species. 



* In Hull. U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 5,3, pt. i. (1905), p. 8. 

 I Science, 28th May, 1897, p. 844. 



