XI 
2. Modern systems are further based on the “Series of Propositions for 
rendering the Nomenclature of Zoology uniform and permanent, being the 
Report of a Committee for the Consideration of the Subject appointed by 
the British Association for the Advancement of Science” 1); certain of the 
propositions therein formulated, however, as also certain of those laid down 
by Linneus, are not accepted at the present day, experience having shown 
that they are inexpedient. 
3. Specific names may be composed of a compound noun, or of a noun 
and adjective, but these should be hyphenated, or run together, Any com- 
bination of letters (thus limited for species), not preoccupied in the same 
category, is available for a generic or specific name, and must be retained 
in its original spelling. 
NB. 1. Names cannot be rejected because of a tendency to be ob- 
jectionable on personal, political, theological, or any other grounds (except 
preoccupation), even if making false propositions, science not being concerned 
with persons, politics or theology. 
This is one of the most controverted of nomenclatorial subjects. The 
nomenclature is supposed to be latin or latinized, but this rule has fallen 
greatly into disuse, a very wide latitude having been taken even at the be- 
ginning, as Musca frit of Linneus and Cimex schach of Fabricius are scarcely 
latin or latinized. I do not propose to deal with the subject of “classical 
emendations’’, because the last fifty years and more have proved the use- 
lessness of such discussion. The gamut of change ranges from those who 
make only such alterations as they suppose will not obscure the word, such as 
“Schyzops’’ to “Schizops”, while others alter nicocephalus to Henicocephalus, 
Scutiphora to Peltophora, Corimelaena to Coreomelas or even Melanocoris, Eli- 
diptera to Helicoptera, Ectrichodia to Ectrychotes and so forth, to the undoubted 
detriment of convenience and stability. In a class by themselves stand 
Walsingham and Durrant, who would reject “homophonous’’ names, declaring 
that Husesia and Ucetia are pronounced in the same way! ”) 
When a classical scholar of the calibre of the lepidopterist Meyrick 
maintains that generic names are to be considered merely as arbitrary com- 
binations of letters, I feel secure in the stand I have taken on ‘priority 
without exception”. Bergroth has attacked my views vigorously *), but 
I have nothing to reply, as we seem to have, on this subject, no ground 
‘in common. It is certainly interesting to know the correct grammatical 
form of any word, but it has nothing to do with entomology, and the 
meddlesomeness of many authors in this respect has been one of the principal 
causes of present day confusion in nomenclature *). 
Bergroth goes so far as to deny me the right to name new species as 
| 1) Rep. Ass. for 1842, p.105; reprinted 1843 A. M. N. H. XI. [not IX, as cited 
‘by Hagen] 259—75; these did not provide properly for the fixation of genotypes. 
|For the present “International Rules” cf. C. W. Stiles 1905, Bull. 24. Hyg. Lab. uss 
Publ. Health Serv. (pp. 1—50.) 
) “Rules for regulating nomenclature” etc. 1896. 
8) Wien. E. Z. XXV. 11—12. (1906.) Ae 
4) “The principle of priority is weakened when the original form of a name 
is relinquished, not in the interests of science, but of scholarship. Stebbing, 1898, 
Zoologist (4) Il. 424. 
