ment of names is unjust, unnecessary and inconvenient, and as the 

 Zoological Congress has now resolved that exceptions may be made 

 in the rule of priority I hope that Bolten's Catalogue may soon be 

 declared an exception. Meantime I refuse to be bound by the trammels 

 of this rule in the light fashion which some still advocate, I shall, 

 therefore, retain the name Callista. ... I shall not accept the 

 revived use of the names Cytherea and Paphia, as proposed by Dr. 

 Dall, who adopts and adapts them from Bolten." 



Dr. Samuel H. Scudder in his great work on the Butterflies of 

 Eastern United States and Canada, says: "Call things by what names 

 one will, I only ask that the facts of nature be rightly interpreted; 

 and where differences are found, that they be given their proper values 

 as nearly as we can determine them, absolutely regardless of the 

 effect it is to have upon the paltry question of names. Names can 

 never have absolute fixity until we have absolute knowledge of all 

 the facts regarding the features they represent, and the sooner this 

 truth is recognized the better for all concerned." 



In the light of this dictum, is the flood of new generic names 

 based upon a study of the soft parts, the embryology, the early stages 

 of the shell, etc.? With the exception of Ortmann on the Unionidae 

 and Baker on the Limniadae I do not recall any systematist who has 

 proposed a new genus based on the soft parts. Professor Paul 

 Bartsch, in acknowledging my paper, writes as follows: "Your 

 paper which you so kindly sent me, 'Observations on Living Lamelli- 

 branchs of New England,' has come to hand, and I have enjoyed very 

 much looking it over. I am particularly pleased with your intro- 

 duction. 



"I think we are all ready to cry out when it comes to nomenclature 

 and yet I do not see that there is any chance whatsoever of checking 

 the tendency to split up until this will have been done to the limit. 

 I believe when we will know all there is to be known about 'critters' 

 we will begin to regroup and bring likes and likes together and will 

 then probably be able to understand a little more fully where the 

 knots in the meshes of our web should be placed. When I look at 



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