8 Nomenclature of Zoology. 
tended descriptions ; thus giving date and publicity to a discov- 
ery, and allowing ample time for a more satisfactory development 
of it. Such are the “ Annals and Magazine of Natural History,” 
and the “ Zoological Proceedings,” in London; the “ Revue 
Zoologique,” in Paris; and the “ Proceedings” of the American 
Philosophical Society, of the Academy of Natural Sciences at 
Philadelphia ; and of the Boston Society of Natural History, in 
this country. 
It will be perceived that this rule disallows any authority to 
manuscript names, whether merely attached to specimens in a 
museum, or even when descriptions are accurately written out 
in full. In the words of the report, “many birds in the Paris 
and other continental museums, shells in the British Museum, 
and fossils in the Scarborough and other public collections, have 
received MS. names, which will be of no authority until they 
are published. Nor can any unpublished descriptions, however 
exact, claim any right of priority till published, and then only 
from the date of their publication.” One who is publishing may, 
from courtesy, adopt names which he knows have been applied 
by some other person; but in that case he must append his own 
cognomen to it, and not that of his friend, for he alone will be 
responsible to the scientific world for it, and his publication alone 
can be referred to as authority. If another has given a name 
and written a description, which the publisher chooses to adopt 
in toto, stating the fact, there can then be no objection that such 
name should stand, with its author’s cognomen appended. Many 
works of recent date exemplify the force of the objections above 
made, and have justly incurred unqualified reprobation. Perhaps 
no case is more glaring than that of M. Kiener, in his beautiful 
work on Shells, where he has been in the habit of adopting the 
names imposed by M. Valenciennes, in the museum of the Gar- 
den of Plants, and appending M. V.’s name as authority, while 
Kiener alone describes the shells, and his work is the only one 
that can be referred to as authority. Now, as many errors are 
found to exist in the work, a writer very pertinently inquires, 
who is to be responsible, he who names without describing, oF 
he who describes without naming ? 
But we proceed to the second part of the Report, in which are 
offered recommendations for improving the nomenclature in 
— ~ They are briefly comprised under the seven following 
rules, 
