476 On the " Claims of Priority.'" 



LXXIV. — The " Claims of Priority ," and what they are 

 sometimes worth. By F. Jeffeey Bell, M.A. 



Readers o£ the ' Annals ' may remember that some time 

 since I took the case of the name " Holothuria " as a test- 

 case for the claims of priority *. No priority-claimer appa- 

 rently had discovered that no Holothurian ouo'ht to be called 

 by the name Holothuria, and I refused to take up a position 

 which, on this occasion, courtesy forbids me to characterize. 



A little later my lamented friend George Brook took up 

 an attitude similar to mine with regard to the well-known 

 name Madrepora f. 



In 1893 there appeared in the ' Athenaeum ' % a warmly 

 appreciative notice of Mr. Stebbing's courage in altering the 

 Latin names of the common crayfisli and the common lobster. 

 1 regretted both the praise and the " courage ; " but the 

 garden I had then to cultivate was big enough for me, and I 

 had no wish to be led into strife. 



Now, however, 1 find I have to name for exhibition in a 

 public gallery both a lobster and a crayfish. 



In his ' History of Crustacea ' (1893, p. 202) Mr. Stebbing 

 applies the name Leach and the date 1814 to the term 

 Asiacus, and states that the type species is Astacus gam- 

 marus ; a little later (p. 207) he writes " Potarnohia, Leach, 

 1819, ... is the genus that has so commonly of late years 

 been called Astacus.^'' 



Leach's genus Astacus, in 1814, contained two species — 

 A. gammarus and A.fuviatilis. The former stood first, and 

 is therefore, I presume, regarded as the " type species " ; on 

 this I would remark that the generic name Astacus was 

 invented by Gronovius in 1764 and that his first species is 

 clearly Cancer fuviatilis of Linna3us. 



Now as to Potamobius: in 1818 Leach § gave a " liste 

 exacte des noms de tons le genres de crustac^s qui ont 6t4 

 publics jusqu'a ce jour"; among them is Potamobie. 1 am 

 no bibliographer, and I do not know when this name first 

 appeared, and 1 do not know to what species its author 

 (whoever he was) applied it ; but it is quite easy to know 

 what contemporary writers thought about it. Lesmarest, 

 who quotes Leach on almost every page, says || : — " II est 

 probable que ce genre [Thel])husa) difF^re peu, ou ne difF^re 

 pas, de ceux qui ont ^t^ nomines Potamon par M. iSavigny, 

 et Potamobia par M. Leach." Prof. Huxley does not give the 



* viii. (1891) p. 108. 



t Cat. Corals lirit. Mus. i. p. 3. 



X 1893, i. p. 800. 



§ liict. 8ci. nat. xii. p. 75. 



II Op. cit. xxviii. (1823) p. 24G. 



