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NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov., 



more wish that the recommendation in regard to synonyms should 

 now be made a definite rule, to the effect that any name of genus or 

 species which has once become a synonym should thenceforward not 

 be available for any new genus or species. Another point concerns 

 English-speaking people rather than the world at large. Whether our 

 common English pronunciation of Greek or Latin be the best or 

 worst, it would certainly be a great blessing to those who use it 

 if an effective guide to pronouncing could be furnished by a small 

 improvement in printing. It was long ago suggested, and no better 

 suggestion has ever since been made, that long and short vowels 

 in zoological names should be discriminated by the straight line and 

 the upturned crescent placed above them, as in prosody. From 

 the want of these guiding marks scientific conversation becomes often 

 very confusing. Ninety years ago Sydney Smith observed that a 

 young Englishman who made a false quantity in public at the outset of 

 his career seldom got over it. That day has passed. We no longer 

 mind the false quantities ; but in discussion we still want to know 

 what the disputants are talking about. There is sometimes no right 

 or wrong in question. As with the name of a well-known genus of 

 trilobites, so far as the derivation is concerned, it may equally well be 

 Calymene or Calymene, but it surely ought to be definitely one or the 

 other. There is a shell called Nautilus, a crab called Lithodes, a 

 shrimp called Hippolyte, a spider called Schoenobates. So far as 

 ordinary printing shows, they may just as well be called Nautilus, 

 Lithodes, Hippolyte, and Schcenobates. When a name cati be mis- 

 pronounced it almost certainly will be ; and then there arises a diffi- 

 culty of understanding one another between those who use the 

 ear-torturing sounds and those who speak correctly. The adoption of 

 the letter " k " instead of " c " in spelling words of Greek origin would 

 be another improvement, which would help to save such a word as 

 Ceraurus (Kera-urus) from being pronounced Serdarus. 



Lastly, I desire to suggest that there is one particular depart- 

 ment in which a scientific convention might be established with 

 comparative ease. According to existing rules, priority is granted to 

 those who introduce new genera and species only on condition that 

 they name them in conformity with the binomial system, and publish 

 some sort of recognisable description. Wherever the authority 

 resides which has enacted these conditions, the same authority 

 must certainly have the right and power to add to them in the 

 interests of science at large. My suggestion then is this, that, for 

 the valid publication of species, each country, or any group of con- 

 senting countries, should have one and only one authoritative journal. 

 Let no new species, however minutely described elsewhere, have 

 any claim to priority until the author has entered its name in the 

 appointed journal, together with a concise account of the characters 

 relied on for its discrimination. The editor of such an organ would be 

 bound to publish at stated intervals all species offered him as new. 



