106 REPORT— 1842. 



on a uniform and permanent basis ; the report to be presented to the Zoolo- 

 gical Section, and submitted to its Committee, at the Manchester Meeting. 



Minute of the Committee of the Section of Zoology and Botany, June 29, 



1842. 



" Resolved, — That the Committee of the Section of Zoology and Botany 

 have too little time during the Meeting of the Association to discuss a 

 Report on Nomenclature, and therefore remit to the special Committee 

 appointed to draw up the Report, to present it on their own responsibility." 



The Committee appointed by the Council of the British Association to 

 carry out the above object, beg leave to report, that at the meetings which 

 they held in London the following gentlemen were added to the Committee 

 and assisted in its labours : — Messrs. W. J. Broderip, Prof. Owen, W. E. 

 Shuckard, G. It. Waterhouse, and W. Yarrell. An outline of the proposed 

 code of rules having been drawn up and printed, copies of it were sent to 

 many eminent zoologists at home and abroad, who were requested to favour 

 the Committee with their observations and comments. Many valuable sug- 

 gestions were obtained from this source, by the aid of which the Committee 

 were enabled to introduce several important modifications into the original 

 plan. A few copies of the plan as amended were then printed for the use of 

 the Committee, and the total cost of printing these two editions amounts to 

 £4- 10s. 



As the probable success of this measure must greatly depend on its ob- 

 taining a rapid and extensive circulation among foreign as well as British 

 zoologists, the Committee beg to recommend that a small sum (say £5 10s.) 

 be appropriated for printing and distributing extra copies of this report in 

 the form which it may finally assume in our Transactions. 



The plan as amended has been further considered by the Committee du- 

 ring the present meeting at Manchester, and the Committee having thus 

 given their best endeavours to maturing the plan, beg now to submit it to 

 the approval of the British Association under the title of a 



SERIES OF PROPOSITIONS FOR RENDERING THE NOMENCLATURE 

 OF ZOOLOGY UNIFORM AND PERMANENT. 



PREFACE. 



All persons who are conversant with the present state of Zoology must be 

 aware of the great detriment which the science sustains from the vagueness 

 and uncertainty of its nomenclature. We do not here refer to those diver- 

 sities of language which arise from the various methods of classification 

 adopted by different authors, and which are unavoidable in the present state 

 of our knowledge. So long as naturalists differ in the views which they are 

 disposed to take of the natural affinities of animals there will always be di- 

 versities of classification, and the only way to arrive at the true system of 

 nature is to allow perfect liberty to systematists in this respect. But the evil 

 complained of is of a different character. It consists in this, that when 

 naturalists are agreed as to the characters and limits of an individual group 

 or species, they still disagree in the appellations by which they distinguish it. 

 A genus is often designated by three or four, and a species by twice that 

 number of precisely equivalent synonyms ; and in the absence of any rule on 

 the subject, the naturalist is wholly at a loss what nomenclature to adopt. 

 The consequence is, that the so-called commonwealth of science is becoming 

 daily divided into independent states, kept asunder by diversities of language 

 as well as by geographical limits. If an English zoologist, for example, visits 

 the museums and converses with the professors of France, he finds that their 



