eo) PROCEEDINGS OF THE MALACOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
exact direction this modification is to be effected. Meanwhile, what 
can be, and what must be, done is to collect data for correlation 
in the future, although unfortunately the conditions are at present 
very unfavourable to the conduct of really scientifie work even in 
this direction. Taxonomy, regarded as the study of the inter- 
relationships of natural types, as distinguished from the founding 
of artificial species, necessitates the examination of large series of 
specimens which must have been carefully collected! to demonstrate 
the range of variation which the various forms pass through at 
the different stations where they occur. Such material is not 
ordinarily available in Museums or private collections. Then 
again, taxonomic research is still further hampered by the traditions 
and conventions which have been handed down with an enormous 
mass of literature from the past. Under existing conditions, an 
excessive proportion of that energy which should be devoted to 
the furtherance of zoological knowledge is wasted in the futile 
attempt to solve mere questions of technical terminology. Futile, 
because the rules of nomenclature which are now, more or less, 
generally accepted, do not assure finality ;* and this altogether apart 
from the fact that these rules are based upon obsolete ideas of ‘ species.’ 
Whether, as believed in some quarters, a changed conception 
concerning the nature of species will necessitate a new system of 
nomenclature by which the different types are to be denoted and 
distinguished, or whether the present system can be so modified as to 
accord with new ideas, need not be discussed here. There are, how- 
ever, one or two points which may be profitably considered, regarding 
the application of names to those forms which are the subject of our 
inquiry as zoologists. 
In the first place, it is not sufficiently realized that the mere 
bestowal of a name upon a specimen which appears to be ‘new’ 
is not itself of any considerable scientific value; and that it may, 
on the contrary, even be a bar to the progress of science. 
Wherever any doubt exists as to what form an author actually had 
before him when founding a species, it is by far the better plan, in my 
opinion, to entirely discard the name in question, on the grounds 
of insufficient description, rather than to start guessing as to the 
intentions of the author. 
As regards the unwarranted ‘lumping’ and ‘splitting’ of species : 
the former practice is the more particularly deserving of censure, 
since the creation or provisional retention of doubtful species is much 
less likely to lead to confusion than is the mistaken union of really 
distinet types. 
? b 
The scientific method of collecting zoological material was discussed in an article 
contributed to Nature, vol. lxiii, pp. 490-1. 
* For example, there are many cases among the Columbellidse where the same 
specific name has been applied to two or more forms belonging to what some 
authors would regard merely as different sections of the same genus, while by 
others each of these sections is itself considered worthy of generic rank ; 
according to the one view only one of the specific names in question is valid, 
while from the other standpoint all are equally admissible. 
