On EUROPEAN SPIDERS. 7 
of those that consist of several, as names of species. This custom we 
look upon as one, that should altogether be rejected: it is easily perceived 
that it opens wide the door to unlimited arbitrariness, and that it is incom- 
patible with the fixing of any determinate limit to the application of the 
law of priority. We assume then as a rule, that in determining the priori- 
ty of a specific name notice should be taken only of those works (or indepen- 
dent portions of works), in which the now received Linnean nomenclature 
is exclusively and consistently employed. We therefore leave unnoticed; 1°. 
all works published previously to the year 1751, when LINNÉ's Philosophia 
Botanica appeared, in whieh his new system of nomenclature was first fully 
and distinctly propounded;?) 2. all writings published subsequently to that 
epoch, in which that nomenclature has either not at all, or not consistently and 
constantly been employed.?) Such names as Tarentula Apuliae ALDROVANDUS 
(instead of 7. Apulie WALCK.), Textrix fuliginea LiSTER (instead of 7. den- 
ticulata OLIV.) cannot therefore be received, because both ALDROVANDUS and 
LisrER lived long before LINNE’S time; neither can GEOFFROY, LEPECHIN or 
GOEZE be cited as authorities for the specific names of spiders, for, although 
they were acquainted with LINNÉ'S system of nomenclature, the first named 
author has never used it,?) whereas the other two use in the same work 
1) LrixNÉ had, it is true, already in his Academical Dissertation Pan Suecus 
(Ameenitates Acad., II, p. 225 — 262) for the sake of brevity ("ut brevitati studeam” 
says he) reduced the differentia specifica to a single word: it was however in the 
Philosophia Botanica (§ 257) that he for the first time proposed the laws of his new 
system of nomenclature: the term momen triviale is here introduced, and it is stated 
that this nomen triviale, or specific name, shall consist of 
”Vocabulo uno" and 
"Voeabulo libere undequaque desumto", 
whereby it's essential difference from the old diagnosis or differentia specifica is indi- 
cated. — LINNÉ in that work still continues to use the expression "nomen specificum” 
as synonymous with differentia specifica: and it is in the Species Plantarum (1153) 
that "nomen specificum” first occurs in its now generally accepted signification, i. e. 
as identical with nomen triviale or species-name. 
2) It is however to be remarked (Conf. Recensio crit. Aran., p. 4.) that some 
authors, and among them LINNÉ himself, have, in works, in which they must still 
be considered as having consistently employed the binominal nomenclature, sometimes 
used trivial names compounded of two, usually closely connected words, (e. g. Ca- 
rabus cruz major LINN., Araneus X notatus OLERCK, Aranea resupina domestica DE 
GEER, Micryphantes ferrum equinum GRUBE), a custom by no means deserving of 
imitation. If the two words, of which such a specific name consist, be not closely 
connected, so as to express a single idea (as is the ease with "resupina domestica" 
DE Geer), the name ought in all instances to be rejected. 
3) Except in the supplement to the 2" Edit. of his Hist. Abrégée des Insectes. 
